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As ]ie Was; K^ jie Is; £s J^Ie Will Be. 



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H. S. FULKERSON. 






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THE NEGRO;, 






As He Was; As He Is; As He Will Be. 



BY H. S:^FULKERSON. 



AUTHOR OF 



Early Days in Mississippi, 



J) 



VICKSBURG, MISS. 

1887, 

PRICE 50 cents-postage PAID. 






VICKSBURG, MISS.: 

COMMKKCIAL UKRALD, TRINTKHS. 
1887. 



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DEDICATION. 



Out of ax affectionate, a respectful and a just remem- 
brance OF her, this little work is dedicated to 

THE OLD SOUTH. 

A VESTAL SHRINE THOU ART BELOVED MOTHER, 

A LOYAL SON UNCOVERS AT THY BIER ; 

THOU ART NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPEST— YET ANOTHER, 

THYSELF TRANSFORMED, IN BEAUTY SHALT APPEAR. 

THY NAKED, BLEEDING FEET SHALL SANDALED BE — 
THY GOLDEN TRESSES, ALL DISHEVELED NOW — 
AGAIN SHALL CROWN THY HEAD OF MAJESTY, 
AND RICHEST DIADEM ADORN THY BROW. 



" If the so-called ' New South make false confession— meanly false— of 
shame in our past, shame in our sire?, shame in our dead, which but the silliest 
fool can honestly feel, then, with all the power i^iven to us by the God of Truth 
we cry: Avaunt, false South, avaunt rotten trunk upon cursed root, thy fruit 
must turn to ashes! "—£x-Mi?iJs<e?- Jackson at Macon. 



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PREFACE. 



" Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things 
which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." — Rev. 1-19. 

A rare combination of circumstances and a providential 
falling in his way of much of his material in the production of 
this little volume, seem to justify the Author in reverently, 
as he does, quoting the above passage of Scripture, and apply- 
ing it to his theme, the divisions of which it so well suits. He 
makes no false pretense of a revelation, 3'et he is so impressed 
by the providential circumstances alluded to that he feels as 
though it would be wrong for him to withhold from the public 
the suggestions which have come to his own mind, or to with- 
hold what is more important, that which he has derived from 
other sources, all of these being pertinent to the subject in 
hand. These suggestions, and the facts and figures accompany- 
ing them, appear to be opportune, for it is not to be disguised 
that there is great incertitude and apprehension in the public 
mind touching the relations, present and future, between the 
white and black races of this countr3\ 

We cannot afford to shut our eyes to the current events of 
the day any more than we can afford to close them to the teach- 
ings of the past; and we should be the more careful to note 
them and to have a right understanding of them, because it is 
out of these that public opinion grows and is formed, and 
finally crystalizes into law. 

Some of the wisest men of our country are persuaded that 
our free institutions are in great peril from sundry causes, and 
they are sounding notes of alarm. It behooves those of us who 
would cherish the blessings we enjoy, and transmit them 
unimpaired to posterity, to be watchful and to embrace every 
opportunity for intelligent acquaintance with these menacing 
perils. 

To do good in this matter is the Author's highest ambition, 
but to accomplish this end he must speak the truth, painful as 
it may sometimes be to himself to do so, and to others to hear 
it. Much of what he has said will doubtless provoke criticism, 
and possibly anger, but he has counted these as a part of the 
cost of his venture, and is, therefore, while not courting tliem, 
prepared to meet them, as he trusts, philosophically. If he 
should be disappointed in this expectation he will be gratified. 

He has diligently sought for light upon the subject, and has 
labored patiently in his searchings hoping to produce some- 
thing worthy of this enlightened age, and something that 
might be conducive to the happiness of his own race and espec- 
ially so to the race about whicli the work is chiefly written. 
With these few introductory remarks he commits his work to 
the public to abide its fate. 

THE AUTHOR. 



Table showing the number of White and Colored people in 

the old Slave States and the District of Columbia, where the 
Negro chiefly abounds now, taken from the United States cen- 
sus of 1880: 

While. Colored. 

Alabama •... 662,185 600,103 

Arkansas 591,531 210,666 

Delaware 120,160 26,442 

District of Columbia 118,206 59,596 

Florida 142,605 126,690 

Georgia 816,906 725,133 

Kentucky 1,377,179 271,451 

Louisiana 454,654 483,655 

Maryland 724,693 210,230 

Mississippi 479,398 650,291 

^[issouri 2,022.826 145,350 

North Carolina ', 867,242 531,277 

South Carolina 391,105 604,332 

Tennessee 1,138,831 403 151 

Texas 1,197,237 393,384 

Virginia 880,858 631,616 

West Virginia 592,537 25,886 

12,578,257 6,099,253 

Total Whites in U. S. in 1880 43.402,970 

Total Colored in U. S. in 1880 6,580,793 



Table showing the growth of Negro population in other 
States and Territories from 1860 to 1880. Taken from the U. 
S. Census of 1880: 





1860 


1870 

26 

4,272 

456 

9,668 

94 

60 

28,762 

24.560 

5.762 

17,108 

1,606 

13,947 

11,849 

759 

183 

789 

357 

580 

30,658 

.172 

52.081 

63,213 

346 

65,294 

4,980 

118 

924 

207 

2,113 

183 


1880 


Arizona 


155 


California 


4,086 

46 

8,627 


6,018 
2,435 


Colorado 


Conneticut 


11.547 


Dakota 


401 


Idaho 




53 


Illinois 


7,628 

11.428 

1,069 

627 
1,327 
9,602 
6,799 

259 


46,368 


Indiana 


39,228 


Iowa 


9,516 


Kansas 


43,107 


j\Iaine 


1,451 


Massachusets 


18,697 


Michigan 


15,100 


Minnesota 

Montanna 


1,564 
346 


Nebraska 

Ne vada 


82 

45 

494 

25,336 

85 

49,005 

36.673 

128 

56,949 

3,952 

59 

709 

30 

1,171 


2,385 
488 


New Hampshire 


685 


New Jersey 


38,853 


New Mexico 


1,015 




65,104 


Ohio 


79,900 




487 


Pennsylvania 


85,535 


•/ 


6,488 


Utah 


232 




1,057 


Wash i n g ton 


325 




2,702 


Wyoming 


298 










226,216 


341,127 


481,540 



PART FIRST. 



AS HE WAS. 



The Negro in Africa— Little Known of Him— Ancient 
Civilizations' on the Coast— Their Failure to Impress the Na- 
tives—The Encvclopa^dia Brittannica on the Negro— Stanly, 
the African Explorer— His Experiences with the Negro— His 
Remarks about the Noble Uledi, his Cockswain— King Mtesa 
oithe Uganda Tribe and his Successor— The World's Color Line 
—Diagram of the Color Line— Rev. Dr. Palmer oh the Color 
Line— The Arvan Races— The Benign and Civilizing Influence 
of Slavery on the African— Telling the Truth about Shivery- 
Secretary Lamar at Charleston— Treatment of Slaves— Policy of 
the slave States— Wisdom of Management— Success of the 
Institution— Conduct of Slaves during the War— How Ac- 
counted for— Affecting Storv of an old Slave Man and his Wife 
going to the ''Yankees"- The Author's Experience at the Same 
Time, Etc., Etc. 



" The Blackness of Darkness'— Will it be "Forever f . . , . 

It is probable that the period has been reached when a 
discussion of the Negro problem, as it is called, on the line of 
philosoi)hy and in the light of facts and statistics, maybe 
listened to, and when the process of determining the question 
may at Ir-ast be begun on other lines than those of prejudice and 
partiality. It is sad to think that in this boasted age of reason 
it requires twenty-live years for the voice of reason to reach us 
in anything in which its teachings would rebuke our passions 
or run counter to our prejudices, but. like the light of distant 
stars, penetrating the vast expanse above, it finally reaches us 
and tlien shines on forever. 

The X(>pro has always been a bone of contention between 
the peoi)l<' of the Cnited States ever since the Union was 
formed, and no matter how closely defined his status may have 



THE NEGRO. 7 

been under the Constitution and laws of the country the people 
have continued to "gnaw at the bone" with a voracity which 
indicated that there was scarcely anything else with which 
their political hunger could be appeased. In the process of 
time (and not a very long time either) they made the Xegro a 
slave, and imbedded him as such in the Constitution; then they 
wrangled about him unnceasingly; then fought about him; 
then freed him; and then immediately elevated him to the 
highest dignity of man by investing him with the right of 
suffrage, digging a new bed for him in the Constitution and 
hedging it about with prohibitions and limitations against all 
unhallowed feet. He was then taken into the nursing arms 
of a paternal government, and after a few draughts from the 
maternal breast, was, while in his "swaddling clothes" and 
"mewling and puking in the nurse's arms," set up together 
with that "mournful fact," as Mr. Greely called him, the 
carpet-bagger, as a good enough ruler for the lately revolted 
States. 

And the piety of the country, North, in alarm at his 
religious state ; however much the sufficiency of his wisdom, 
sent, " out of their abundance," the missionary with " millions " 
in his pocket, to look after his future state. And then the 
wickedly rebelious States, incredulous as to the capacity of the 
Negro to rule, immediately set about the task, and that "of 
their penury." of giving him the blessing of education, taxing 
their ))ropert3^ to the extent (at present) of not less than five 
million dollars per annum for the purpose; besides spending 
other untold and unascertained millions for the suppression of 
his crimes, looking to the benevolent end of making him a 
good citizen. 

It will be seen by report of the State Superintendent of 
Education to the Mississippi Legislature, session of 1SS5-G, that 
$840,776.86 were expended in the year of 1885 in support of our 
public school system, and the higher institutions established 
for both races; the whole sum being raised by taxation. The 
average monthly enrollment, was, of whites, 112,540; colored, 
180,318. Tbe Superintendent for the county of Warren, outside 
the city of Vicksburg which has its own independent system 
of free "schools, in his report to the Board of Supervisors for the 
year ending April 5th, 1887, gives as the amount expended in 
the county in support of public schools, for the term of four 
months, iis being 89,410.00. Total enrollment of children, 
3,932. White, 432, colored 3,500. 

SO.MK NEWSPAPER CLI I'l'I XfiS. 

"Of the money now raised by taxation in the South, the 
greater proi)ortion goes for public schools. The amount actually 
needed for the support of the several State governments, includ- 
ing everything except the schools — for the interest on the debt, 



B THE NEGRO. 

for judicial expenses, State and other officials, levees, etc., is 
S9,8o0.0U0; while the amount expended for the schools, is Sll,- 
545,033. If the comparison be made with other sections, it 
will be shown that the South does its full duty in the matter, 
actually taxing itself State and county, 3.4 mills, or nearly one- 
third of 1 per cent., against an average of 2 mills for the whole 
country. It is evidently doing its very best in the way of edu- 
cating its youth. 

It has made wonderful strides in the last few years, but it 
has still much to do. The following statistics show the im- 
provement in the public schools since the beginning of the 
decade : 

1886-7 1879-80. 

No. Schools 61,583 45,031 

No. Teachers 59,9(33 43,026 

No. Children enrolled 3,006,124 2,054,376 

Children in attendance 2,089,920 1,428,320 

Amount expended on schools $11,545,033 0,415,706 

Average duration of school, days 106 lOl 

As compared with 1870-71, when the Republicans were in 
power and controlling the public school systems, and plunder- 
ing the ))ublic school funds, there has been a great advance. 
The number of children enrolled and the attendance has been 
increased nearly threefold. The Southern States have, during 
this period, perfected their normal schools until now there is no 
lack of teachers for all the schools in the South. The subject of 
education has been extensively discussed, and the institutes 
have perfected the teachers in the art of instruction." 

"There are 16,000 colored teachers in this country, 1,000,000 
pupils in the Southern States alone, 15,000 in the male and 
female high schools, and about 3,000,000 worshippers in the 
churches. There are sixty normal schools, fifty colleges and 
universities, and twenty-five theological seminaries." 

Verily, there is reason for the Negro's vanity, large by na- 
ture and thus cultivated by circumstances. Can he come to 
other conclusion than that this would be a poor and helpless 
country without him? And with tliese evidences of his im- 
l)ortan"ce to the country and his high capacities, is it to be 
thought "a thing incredible " that he should expect to rise in 
a few brief years to the high ground reached by the Aryan 
races after a struggle of four thousand years ? 

All we know of our Negro as iik av.vs, before the civilizing 
process of slavery began, is, that wicked men, "with wicked 
hands," caught him or bought him on the western coast of Af- 
rica, som(! one to two hundred years ago — say three to six gen- 
ationsagone — which wicked men, being engaged in dark deeds, 
in the dark continent, have left the world in darkness as to 
their modes and i)rocesses (we only know their motives) and 
we arc hdt to guess at the names of the royal heads or chiefs, or 



THE NEGRO. 9 

bloated and brutish slave-holders they traded with. We only 
know (and that from outsiders) that these bought slaves be- 
longed to tribes inhabiting the jungles of Africa near the coast; 
tribes without a history, a legend or even a cairn as a mark of 
their progress. The}'' have no legend of the flood; the only 
people ever discovered, saj'S an eminent French writer, without 
such legend. Stanley, in his " Through the Dark Continent," 
shows how the tribes shaded off, as he approached the Western 
coast, from the center of equatorial Africa, (where he found 
tribes somewhat civilized) into the blackness of darkness in ig- 
norance, degradation and superstition. They had no more use 
for his '' Yankee notions" in exchange for their goobers than 
would an unreconstructed rebel of (leorgia have. Their only 
answer to his tempting and glittering ornaments held up to 
view and offered in exchange for food, when he and his people 
were starving, was " Rum, rum !" They wanted nothing but 
rum, and this was the extent of the civilizing influence given 
by their intercourse with traders on the coast. Such is the ori- 
gin of the Negro of the Tnited States, and this is about all we 
know of his ancestors. 

Some of these Western tribes were cannibals. The Ency- 
clopaedia Brittannica, on " Cannibalism," says, amongst other 
things: 

" Cannibalism assumes its most repulsive form where hu- 
man flesh is made an ordinary article of food like other meat. 
This state of things is not only mentioned in past times, in de- 
scriptions of We^t Africa, where human flesh was even sold in 
the market, but still continues among the Manbutta of Cen- 
tral Africa, whose wars with neighboring tribes are carried on 
for the purpose of obtaining human flesh, the bodies of the slain 
being dried for transport, while the living prisoners are being 
driven off like cattle." 

Dried African and African on foot! What a field for Ar- 
mour, the great meat king, and a packing establishment is 
the Manbutta country ! 

AFRICAN SWEETMEATS — CANNIBALISM IN CENTRAL AFRICA — ONE 
MAN WHO HAS KILLED AND EATEN EKillT OF Ills WIVES. 

"It is an open question whether cannibalism is really a 
vice of any tribe in the regions of the Congo, though evidence 
of it croi)s u]) now and then in a secondhand way that is re- 
garded as sufficient by some travelers to take the question as es- 
tablished. },iv. Stanley, in his second journey through the Dark 
Continent, at a vilhige called Kam})unzu, found two rows of 
skulls running along the entire length of the viUage, imbedtled 
about two inches in the ground, the 'cerebral hemispheres' up- 
permost, bleached and glistening white from the weather. He 
was told they were the skulls of the'sokos' — chimpanzees, oth- 
erwise called ' meat of the forest.' 

Mr. Ward not only takes it for granted that cannibalism 



10 THE NEGRO. 

is a reality among certain tribes of Central Africa, but he sends 
me the portrait of a well-known cannibal of Ban gala, who is re- 
puted to have eaten eight of his wives; and he also forwards me 
a set of implements that have been used at cannibalistic feasts. 
They consist of two spoons and a curious fork. It may be noted 
in favor of the statement, that there is no doubt as to the 
authenticity of these things, that they are by far the most prim- 
itive of all the articles of native manufacture which I have re- 
ceived. They are crude and ugly enough in shape and design 
to be the product of the most barbarous tribe, and, if Cannibal- 
ism is a Central African custom, one can quite imagine that 
these might well be the knives and forks of a cannibalistic 
feast.'" — London Illustrated News. 

Possibly some of our white ancestors were cannibals, but we 
don't know'it, and if they were, it's a very long time ago. 

It is one of the marvels of time and history, that the civili- 
zations planted upon the shores and outer edges of Africa, be- 
ginning, it may be said, with the dawn of civilization, have 
never b'een able to penetrate the interior of the Dark Conti- 
nent. The many millions of her inhabitants continue to sit in 
darkness, with their minds as sable in hue as their bodies. 
The Carthagenians, when at the height of their prosperity and 
in the broadest glare of their civilization, planted numerous 
colonies on the western coast, and traded entensively with the 
tribes of the interior. There was no ignition from the light 
they carried— the death-damps of the interior extinguished the 
spark, leaving no trace behind. No more influence had other 
nations that planted colonies on her shores. The Arab slave- 
traders, by miscegenation, have made some impression upon 
the Eastern coast tribes; but, if Stanley is to be believed, the 
tendency with these mixed breeds is to deterioration, with the 
prospect of the Arab mark (in color) being entirely lost. He 
speaks on page 428, 1st Vol., of a mixed tribe (mulatoes) as be- 
ing singularly long limbed and slender bodied," and as " not 
superior to their less favored neighbors in manners or customs 
or ways and means of life." 

From the utter absence of civilizing influences upon the 
native African by ancient civilizations, and from the testi- 
mony of modern explorers, as to his present condition, it may 
be fairly cjuestioned if he is susceptible to what is known_ as 
the civilization of the nineteenth century. Such questioning 
may be regarded as an uncharitably pessimistic view of his 
case, but in the light of such facts as we have, can it be avoided? 
Much stress is laid upon the elevating power of the Chris- 
tian religion to the end of his civilization. But it must be ad- 
mitted that the experiments in this line with the Africans 
li!iv«' so far yielded but little fruit. The same, it may be re- 
plied, is tru(! of eiloris in the same line with other heathen peo- 
ples. Hut then, it must not be forgotton, that a saving knowl- 



THE NEGRO, 11 

edge of God may be obtained by individuals, and by peoples 
standing and remaining upon a very low plane of civilization. 
A nation may be born in a day to spiritual things, but not to 
civilzation. The latter is a growth and not a birth. The suc- 
cess of Christian missions in Greenland, in Madagascar, and 
the Fijii and Sandwich islands, is nearly, if not quite, a reali- 
zation of the prophecy, but what civilized nation woiild incor- 
porate these with itself and invest them with all of its privi- 
leges ? 

The penitent thief upon the cross illustrates this idea. 
The law of his country, the genius of the institutions under 
which he lived, demanded his life. He was untit to live a 
natural life, to enjoy the civil institutions of his country, but 
through penitence and the forgiveness of his sins, he was in- 
vested with spiritual life and made an heir of eternal life. 
The Gospel affords, and is able to afford a liberality which 
would unsettle the foundations of human society, constituted as 
it is at present, if applied to it. We shall have to wait for the 
" new heavens and the new earth " before its principles in all 
their plenitude can be applied to human affairs. 

To all appearances, the African is, physically, the same as 
the white man. Bur what says anatomy in its careful meas- 
urements? And to outward appearances, he is mentally the 
same. In this respect, we have the speculations of many close 
observers. The Encyclopffidia Brittannica, on the Negro, pages 
316 and 317, Vol. xvi'i, in treating of him in both respects, says: 

"The chief points in which the Negro either approaches 
the Quadrumnna or differs most from his congeners, are : 1st, the 
abnormal length of the arm, which in the erect position some- 
times reaches to the knee i»an, and which, on an average, ex- 
ceeds that of the Caucasian about two inches; 2d, Prognathism 
or projection of the jaws (index number of facial angle about 
70, as compared with the Caucasian 82); 3d, weight of brain as 
indicating cranial capacity. So ounces (highest gorilla. 20; av- 
erage European, 45); 4th, 'Full black eye, with black iris and 
yelfovvish sclerotic coat, a very marked feature ; ")th, Short, flat 
snub nose, deeplv depressed at the V)ase or frontal suture, broad 
at extremitv. with dilated nostrils and concave ridge; 6th, 
Thick, protruding lips, plainly showing the inner red surface ; 
7th, verv large zygomatic arches— high and prominent cheek 
bones; 8th, exceeding thick cranium, enabling the Negro to 
butt with the head and resist blows which would inevitably 
break any ordinary European skull; 9th, Correspondingly weak 
lower linibs, termi'nating in a broad, Hat foot, with low instep, 
divergent and prehensile great toe, and heel projeciting back- 
wards ( 'lark heel"); 10th, Complexion-deep brown or blackish, 
and in some cases, even distinctly black, due not to any special 
pigment, as is often supposed, but merely to the greater abun- 
dance of coloring matter in the Mali.ighian mucous membrane; 



12 THE NEGRO. 

between the inner or true skin and the epidermic or scarf skin; 
11th, Short, black hair, eccentrically elliptical or almost flat in 
section, and distinctly wooly, not merely frizzly, as Pritchard 
supposed, on insufficient evidence; 12th, Thick epidermis, cool, 
soft and velvety to the touch; mostly hairless, and emitting a 
peculiar rancid odor, compared by Pruner Bey to that of the 
buck goat ; loth, Frame of medium height, thrown somewhat 
out of the perpendicular by the shape of the pelvis, the spine, 
the backward projection of the head, and the whole anatomical 
structure : 14th, The cranial sutures, which close much earlier 
in the negro than in other races. To this premature ossifica- 
tion of the skull, preventing all further development of the 
brain, many pathologists have attributed the mental inferiority 
which is even more marked than their physical differences. 

Nearly all observers admit that the negro child is on the 
whole, quite as intelligent as those of other human varieties, 
but that on arriving at puberty, all farther progress seems to be 
arrested. No one has more carefully studied this point than 
Filippo Manetta, who, during a long residence on the planta- 
tions of the Southern States of America, noted that ' The negro 
children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on ap- 
proaching the adult period, a gradual change set in. The intel- 
lect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort 
of lethargy, brightness yielding to indolence. ' We must neces- 
sarily suppose that the development of the Negro and White 
proceeds in different lines. While with the latter, the volume 
of the brain grows with the expansion of the brain-pan, in the 
former the growth of the brain is, on the contrary, arrested by 
the premature closing of the cranial suture and lateral pres- 
sure of the frontal bone. 

" It must at the same time be confessed that the question 
of the mental tem})erament of the Negro has been greatl}' com- 
plicated by the partizanship of interested advocates on either 
side. But for this disturbing element, it would perhaps be 
readily admitted that the mental are at least as marked as the 
physical differences between the dark and other races. And as 
both are the gradual outcome of external conditions fixed by 
heredity, it follows that the attempt to suddenly transform the 
Negro mind by foreign culture, must be, as it has proved to be, 
as futile as the attempt would be to suddenly transform his 
physical type." 

No less than fifty-five authors of various countries, and 
travelers and explorers in Africa, have been consulted by the 
editor of the Kncyclopaidia in the make-up of the 'long and ex- 
haustive article on the Negro, a very small portion of which 
only is given in the foregoing extract. 

In an attempt to get a knowledge of the Negro's character 
and capacities there is no more valuable work to consult than 
Stanley's. Mis opportunities for observation were extensive, 



THE NEGRO. 13 

and his experience with the Negro was large. In his moments 
of disgust he would fain pursuade himself that all mankind 
were not of "one blood," while at other times, under the 
influence of some noble act performed, he was proud to call the 
African "brother." And under the influence of these varying 
moods he is led into inconsistent expressions of opinion con- 
cerning him. How like the experience of those who have 
known him long and well under the better conditions of his 
life in this country, in slavery and in freedom? And how 
like are the characteristics observed, and how these concuring 
observations emphasize the difliculty of eliminating what is 
" bred in the bone." 

The Negro is a riddle to us more because he is not what we 
would have him to be than that he is what he is. His essen- 
tial and prominent characteristics are as unchangeable as the 
spots of the leopard, (this of him as a race, not always individu- 
ally) and may not as much be said of all the divisions of the 
human family ? 

Stanley, in the beginning of his first volume, quotes the 
disparaging remarks of several explorers concerning the Afri- 
cans. One of them saying, " the wretches take trouble and 
display an ingenuity in opposition and disobedience, in per- 
versity, annoyance and villainy which, rightly directed, would 
make them invaluable." He then adds for himself, " I find 
them capable of great love and aflection, and possessed of grati- 
tude and other noble traits of human nature." His experiences 
with them, as detailed in the course of his narrative, hardly 
sustain this eulogy except in a limited way. Much of 
his narrative supports the charges of the author quoted 
above. Of course he had a varied experience in havine 
to do with so many people in his charge, and so many tribes 
as he journeyed. Of one tribe which appeared to be well fed 
and prosperous, and by whom he was denied food when on the 
very verge of starvation, he says: "Ah! in what part of all 
the Japhetic world would such a distracted and woeful band as 
we were then have been regarded with such hard, steel-cold 
eyes." His remarks about the noble Uledi, the cockswain of 
the Lady Alice, and his kinsmen, a brother and a cousin, all 
full-blooded Negro savages, originally, are highly interesting, 
and the writer cannot forbear to notice and quote some of them. 
Much is said of Uledi in the narrative, and his noble conduct 
on many occasions arrests and rivets the attention of the reader. 
Jle is as splendid an example of the virtues of fortitude, fidelity 
and courage under the most trying circumstances, as is to be 
found in history. Stanley says of him, " he was a devotee to 
his duty, and as such was ennobled; he was affectionately 
obedient, and as such he was beloved; he had risked hi.s life 
many times for creatures who would never have risked their 
own for his; as such he was honored. Yet, this ennobled 



14 • THE NEGRO. 

beloved and honored servant — ah! I regret to speak of him in 
such terms — robbed 7Jie." His thefts on several occasions were 
proved up conclusively, and a flogging was the verdict of the 
head men of the expedition. He was so beloved that all plead 
for him, and his brother and cousin at the hour of administer- 
ing the punishment presented themselves as substitutes for the 
guilty one. Stanley accepted them as such, but in the pres- 
ence of the whole expedition graciously pardoned them. How 
like the wailing of an infant is the pleading of Uledi's cousin 
for his kinsman ? " The master is wise. All things that hap- 
pen he writes in a book. We black men know nothing, neither 
have we any memory. What we saw yesterday is to-day for- 
gotten !" AVho that knows the Negro well will fail to recognize 
him in these last sad and truthful words of the pleading sav- 
age? 

All African explorers agree in the opinion that the people 
of Uganda, a populous district of Central Africa, are the most 
advanced in the arts and some of the other features of civiliza- 
tion of all the tribes met with by them, and Stanley may be 
said to claim in his work, having converted Mtesa, the King 
of the country, to Christianity, though not to the extent of 
inducing him to put away any of his seven thousand wives! 
Since Stanley's second expedition his efforts to introduce 
Christianity in that country have been seconded by quite a 
number of missionaries, and a good degree of success has 
attended their labors. Upan the death of Mtesa, some two and 
a half years since, his son, Mwanga, came to the throne, and 
very soon, under evil counsel, evinced hostility to the mission- 
aries, putting Bishop Hannington and others to death, besides 
scores of native christians; burning the latter at the stake and 
horribly mutilating their bodies. This young ruler is the last 
of a line of Kings running back some three hundred years. 
Christianit}'' has had another triumph in the deaths of these 
numerous martyrs who refused to adjure their faith as a con- 
dition of the sparing of their lives, and it will be seen again, 
doubtless, that " the blood of the martj^rs is the seed of the 
church;" and that Christianity may be a success where the 
civilization of the age is a failure. 

Color has much if not everything to do with the relation 
of races to civilization. The Aryan (signifying noble) or White 
races are the founders and conservators of civili.'uition. The 
Yellow races are almost wholly only semi-civilized, and the 
black races are almost wholly uncivilized. The "color line " 
is thus distinctl}' drawn on the map of the world, and in all 
the ages of the past has defied the hand of time to obliterate it. 
In so far as the races (not individuals) are concerned race 
characteristics, determined by color, are as immutable as any of 
the laws of nature, and in so far as we may judge the future by 
the past, will continue so to be to the end of time. A mixing 



THE NEGRO. 15 

of the races does not seem to cure the difficulty or obliterate the 
line. It may seem to do so for a time, but finally the law pre- 
vails and the mixed race settles back to the dominant color, 
if not characteristics, where the mixing occurs. This, as here- 
inbefore noticed, was observed by Stanley in the mixing of 
the Arabs with the Africans at Zanzibar. 

In an open letter, addressed by a committee of ministers 
and elders of the Southern Presbyterian church, of which Rev. 
B. M. Palmer, D. D., was chairman, to the members of said 
church, on Organic Union with the Northern Church, the fol- 
lowing is said in that part of the letter which treats of the 
race problem : 

"It canot be denied that God has divided the human race 
into several distinct groups, for the sake of keeping them 
apart. When the promise was given to Noah that the world 
should not be again destroyed with a flood, it became necessary 
to restrain the wickedness of man that it should not rise to the 
same height as in the ante-Diluvian period. Hence the Unit}- 
of huniiin speech was broken, and "so the Lord scattered them 
abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth." Now, co- 
ordinate with this '' confusion of tongues," we find these grou})S 
distinguished by certain physical characteristics — and that, too, 
as far back as history carries us. We are not warranted in 
affirming that this differentiation through color and otherwise, 
was accomplished at the same time, and as part of the same 
process, with the "confusion of tongues;" but since the di.stinc- 
tion exists from a period in the past of which history takes no 
note, and since science fails to trace the natural causes by which 
it could be produced, the inference is justified which regards it 
as fixed b}' the hand of Jehovah Himself. At any rate, all the 
attempts to restore the original unit}' of the race by the amal- 
gamation of these severed parts, have been providentially and 
signally rebuked. In all instances where the Caucasian stock 
has crossed with the others — as when the Latin families, witii a 
feebler instinct of race, have intermingled with the people 
whom they found in Mexico and in portions of South America 
— the lesult has been the production of a stock inferior in qual- 
ity to both the factors which sunk their superior virtues in an 
emasculated progeny. Largely to this cause is due the failure 
of these Latin families to hold the colonies which they have 
established in different parts of the world ; and which have, 
one by one, slipped from their hands into the possession of oth- 
ers. The Anglo-Saxon stock, on the contrar}', through all time 
jealous of its purity of blood, and refusing to debase it by in- 
termingling with inferior races, has preserved its power and to 
this day dominates vast empires in which it has ])lantt'd its 
banners. These are stubborn tacts lying upon the face of his- 
tory, open to the inspection of all who will studiously consider 
their import." 



16 THE NEGRO. 

After the manner of Mr. Edward Atkinson, the great stat- 
istician of the North, and after the manner of the baking pow- 
ders advertisements in the newspapers, the diagram below is 
presented to the public in illustration of the writer's idea of 
the three grand divisions of the .human family, to-wit : 



White ^-»^— 
Yello w^""^"*^""^^" 
Black«« 

It is done out of regard, especially, to New England readers, 
to whose understanding Mr. Atkinson has been demonstrating 
his propositions by diagram for so long a time that they will 
hardly be able to understand the foregoing statement, in the ab- 
sence of this perfect demonstration ! 

A high historical authority (Hwinton, in his Outlines of 
the World's History) says : 

''The Aryans are in general a progressive and practical 
race, but the Hindoos (a mixed race) after making considerable 
advance in literature and philosophy, became stationary and 
had very little influence on the^great current of the world's 
history. Their kinsmen, the Persians, being left unmixed, de- 
veloped far more of those characteristics that marked the Euro- 
pean members of the Aryan stock." 

It will be shown in the course of this investigation, by 
perfectly reliable statistics, that deterioration in its worst form, 
that is, in viorals— which carries with it every other form of 
deterioration — is evident to an alarming extent in the descen- 
dants of the white and black miscegenationists of the South. 
This crime (under our laws) is shockingly prevalent and its 
})erpetrators are filling our jails and penitentiaries with the 
fruit of their beastly lust. The 8olons of the Legislature of 
Ohio, who lately repealed the law of that State against the 
crime, would do well to note the figures in part second of this 

work. 

We come now to speak of the Negro as he was under the 
benign influence of American slavery. For, think as we may 
of the institution abstractly, it was to that race a beneficence, if 
/ slavery with the chance of freedom, and the betterment of con- 
dition, in a civilized country, be better than barbarism, canni- 
balism, debasement, and the chance of slavery in a land of sav- 
ages? Without raising here the question of his capacity to ap- 
preciate and enjoy our free institutions, it may be affirmed that 
he has been admi'tted, through slavery, to a degree of physical 
eiijoyniLiit and comfuit to which he would have been a stranger 
in the land of his forefathers. And over and above all, he has 
throujrh slavery, had tlie opjwrtunity of being brought to the 
knualcdgjof Ciod. For whatever his capacity, whether it be 
mncli or little, for the comi)rehension of the civilization to 
which he is introduced, there can be no question of his ability 



THE NEGRO. 17 

to comprehend the phm of salvation, otherwise the command to 
preach the CJospel to every creature would have no significance 
us to him, and he would be shut out eternally from the Kin<r- 
dom of Light. Nor does it follow that because ho is capable of 
understanding and enjoying a divine institution, he is there- 
fore capable of enjoying any mere human one. In the one he 
has the promise of supernatural help, while in the other he is 
shut up to the slow process of helping himself. 

Since slavery is dead and buried, and the stone of the Con- 
stitution has been rolled against the mouth of its sepulchor, to 
"make it fast," and since no one fears, hopes for or desires its res- 
urrection, we can all afford to speak out our present convictions 
about it, no matter if it lead to confession of error, just as Secre- 
tary Lamar did at Charleston, when he said, " The mistake that 
was made by the Southern defenders of slavery, was in regard- 
ing It as a permanent form of society, instead of a process of 
emergence and transition from barbarism to freedom." 

It may be questioned if the great apostles of Abolitionism, 
U m. Loyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, would, if they were 
now hvmg, speak of the institution as "the sum of all villain- 
ies, and its constitutional guarantee as "a covenant with hell." 
And the Negro might, with profit to himself, calmlv and 
patiently institute a comparison between the horrors of slavery 
and the horrors of freedom, as illustrated by his own history 
We have our " Uncle Tom's Cabin" record, with its truths and 
its exagerations, to aid him in the one, and in the other we 
have the records of the courts, the reports of our penitentiaries, 
and the limbs whereon he has hung under the orders of Judge 
Lynch, for committing the nameless crime. A careful exami- 
nation of these historic parallels might reconcile him to the 
slavery part of the plan of Providence, which brought him into 
the glorious liberty of a free agent for the commission of crimes 
against society, as well as in the working out of his future des- 
tiny by himself and for himself. 

Another reason why we should tolerate the thought of slav- 
ery with sulhcient equanimity to fairly canvass its merits, con- 
sists in its unquestioned good, physically and morally, to the 
Negro, as a race, and the good it did in its dav in contributing 
so largely to the comfort of the whole human family. The 
world was first cheaply clothed by the product of slave labor, 
and it may be seriously questioned if the South would have 
been to this day opened up to the growth of cotton extensively 
had its dependence to that end been alone upon white labor. 
And all men and all institutions are judged and esteemed ac- 
cording to the good they do. The doing by the Negro, in free- 
dom, of as much good to himself and the world as he did in 
slavery, is a (juestion for the future. His doing it does not fol- 
low as a matter of course from his having the opportunity to 
do it. Opportunities often go unimproved. Some things to be 



18 THE NEGRO. 

said in another branch of the subject, and in a more appropriate 
place, may create a doubt, if it does not produce a conviction, 
unfavorable to the Negro on this point. 

The very nature of the ends sought by African slavery, 
in this country, and the preservation of the institution in its 
highest efficiency, made it necessary to deny the slave " a 
vi^hite man's chance," as the saying goes. 

Mr. Justice Bradley, of the United States Supreme Court, 
in delivering the opinion of the Court in the case against the 
Memphis & Charleston railroad, under the Civil Rights bill 
of 1875, clearly recognizes this principle in saying: ''Compul- 
sory service of the slave for the benefit of the master, restraint 
of his movements except by the master's will, inability to hold 
property, to make contracts, to have a standing in court, to be 
a witness against a white person, and such like burdens and in- 
capacities, were the inseparable incidents o( the institution." 

This was said in defining the term slavery under the sys- 
tem as it existed in this country, and made necessary by the 
pleadings in the case. It will be observed that he speaks of 
the disabilities enumerated as inseparable incidents of slavery. 
Insubordination and idleness are prominent characteristics of 
the race in their untutored state, and these could be met only 
by arbitrary and coercive measures. The slaves' own good 
made these absolutely necessary. No sane man and no wise 
government would undertake to control and provide for the 
well-being of a race with these characteristics and whose pro- 
genitors had been savages from the beginning of time, u})on 
any other principle. 

They were denied the simplest rudiments of an education. 
Well, they didn't need it for the purpose for which they were 
introduced into the country. They were wanted for their muscle 
and physical adaptation to a southern climate, and not for their 
brains. The master had all the brains — the directing power^ — 
needed. 

The Constitution of the United States did not recognize 
the slave as a person, and denied him the privileges granted to 
otlier foreigners, and that, too, in the face of the famous " self- 
evident truth " (fiction ?), that " all men are born equal." Then 
if the general governnaent might })ut exceptional limitations 
upon him, why not the States, which had the higher concern 
in the institution, and which were resi)onsible for its man- 
agement ? They simply judged it best for their own safety and 
the good of the slave to pursue the i)olic3' they did. 

How for the good of the slave? Why, it promoted his con- 
tentment to keep iiim in ignorance in his inchoate civilizing 
state. As before said, there was no need to cultivate his mind. 
]iut, was tiiat just? That wns not the (question ; '■ Was it best?" 
was the ical question. 

Tlie justice or rightfulness of slavery had been assumed, 



THE NEGRO. 19 

and the policy which would best conserve it— make it safe and 
uyetul— was tiie true i)olicy. And who but those interested 
in It and responsible for it, should judge what was best? 
The slave could not be treated with and made a i)artv to the 
question of policy. Should outsiders be made a party? No. 
They were without interest and without experience in the 
working of the institution. 

It is obvious that the mental improvement of the slave 
would have lessened the security and therefore the value of the 
institution, and it was not to be expected that those resi)onsible 
tor it and satisfied with it, would provide the means of its de- 
struction. The slave was not forbidden to learn what he 
could outside of books, and in his religious instruction, in 
which he was largely and liberally provided for, he was taught 
trom books. 

Was slavery worth all of this arbitrary rule, this repression 
of the slave's faculties? Was it nece8mry\\\ the plan of that 
Providence which rules and over-rules all things, to the extent 
even of causing " the wrath of man to praise him ?" Was the 
slave-holder an instrument in the working out of a plan "de- 
vised in the councils of eternity?" Or was it only human 
craft, human cruelty, human cupidity? Who is so wise as to 
give an infallible answer to these questions ? Some of those who 
indulge in objurgations hurled against the slaveholder of for- 
mer days, from shafts dipped in the poison of vindictive hearts, 
swear by a Book in which are recorded many things done by 
rulers \vhich look ivrong to us, and yet of many an one of these 
rulers it is said, '' And he did that which was riqht in the sisiht 
of the Lord." 

How reconcile these things with our notions of right and 
wrong? Are they not hidden to us — involved in undisclosed 
plans and purposes — in a wisdom too deep for us, causing us to 
cry out with the Psalmist, " It is high ; I cannot attain unto it." 

The separation of families was one of the evil incidents of 
thejnstitution against which a great "hue and cry" has been 
raised. It was regarded as a serious evil by many slaveholders 
and njany of them refused to be parties to its pVactice. But 
inany things fade in their atrociousness as they are examined 
in the light of reason and the calmness of unprejudiced con- 
templation. 

Property in the slave and his issue certainly gave Ihe right 
to do it. It was therefore lawful, and men are slow to charge 
their consciences with wrong in the doing of lawful things. 
The law itself in the execution of processes of our courts, often 
separated them. Only in-so-far as the institution itself was 
wrong was the exercise of this right wrong, under the law. 
And whether right or wrong morally, was it not a necessary in- 
cident of this institution ? The law, in making the slave prop- 
erty, did it absolutely : it could not (and did not) distinguish 



20 THE NEGRO. 

between this species of property and other property, without 
changing its character as property in an essential feature. 

The Constitution of the United States, regarded by many 
persons as the highest law of the land, except where it tres- 
passes upon their prejudices, (then these have another law, still 
" higher ") concedes all that was practiced by the "heartless" 
slave owner. It put no limit upon the property rights of the 
slave owner in his slave. 

Again the Negro came down to the generations which exer- 
cised this lawful right, traditionally, as an inferior being, whose 
natural rights no one was bound to respect. This tvas the judg- 
ment of the world then, and was it to be expected that the slave- 
owner would be unaffected or uniniiuenced by this universal 
judgment? 

The right of the white parent, then as now, to separate his 
or her child from the family by " indenture," was akin to this 
right; and some things were practiced in those days which are 
now shocking to us. " A gentleman in this country, in 1815, 
having access to not a very large number of English sources of 
information, found, in a single year, thirty-nine instances of 
wives exposed to public sale like cattle at Smiihfield." (Our 
Country, by Rev. Josiah Strong, D. D., page 5). 

Then, again, it often hap|)ened in these forced separations, 
that the good of the remainder of the family, as well as of the 
sold member, was promoted by the sale. All of this, how- 
ever, in extenuation and historic justice, not in justifica- 
tion. 

The writer has a too vivid recollection of the pain which 
these frequent forced separations occasioned in the white fami- 
ly, especially with the children, between whom and the servants, 
good and bad, there was a genuine affection. They were akin 
in the stature of their minds and what was a delight to the 
one was a delight to the other. The touches of nature here 
were real and unaft'ected, and it is the glory of our human- 
ity that the heart has capacities for love which trans- 
cend the boundaries of condition and knit together the rhost 
discordant elements. It is a sacrilege to rudely break these 
heart ties, especially so when lodged in the breasts of little 
children. 

Sometimes, though rarely, habitual and incurable runaways 
were branded as means of identification when apprehended. 
They wei'c usually l)ad and dangerous negroes, and a great ter- 
ror to women and children. Their lives, when they were not 
sustained by other slaves, were sui)ported by pillage. The 
highwayman in any country was scarcely a more dangerous 
character. This branding was not allowed by law. The owner 
of the pruperty took the responsibility. It was a relic of 
barbarism, handed down to him by his virtuous forefathers in 
Old and New JOngland. Blackstone, on the Common Law of 



THE NEGRO. 21 

Englaud, 4th Vol., page 377, treats upon the statutes about 
" branding, ear-cutting and nose-slitting," as stigmas or marks 
of infamy, and the searclier after tliese barbarous methods 
will (ind as much in 1st Bishop on Criminal Law, Sec. 942. 

New England and other Northern States have adopted this 
common law of England in extenso and some of its cruelties have 
been ])racticed b}- these, while the South never has adopted the 
common law, following the example first set in this respect by 
\'irginia. Mississippi's Code of 18-57 expressly prohibits such 
cruelty to slaves ; see Chapter 33, Section 2, page 23-5, where 
heavy penalties by fine and imprisonment are prescribed for 
cruel and unusual [)unishment of slaves; for insullicient food 
or clothing, or injuries to life and limb. Moreover as a special 
protection to the slave the master's general character as to 
cruelt}' could be proved, something which is inadmissible in 
ordinary criminal prosecutions. The first section of this act 
goes so far as to provide that if a slave maltreated is found in 
possession of a master the fact shall be taken ix?, prima facia evi- 
dence of guilt. 

Another thing which .hm brought odium upon African 
slavery was its loose marriage system. Marriage has a civil 
as well as a religious side. The state, under our fundamental 
principle of complete separation of Church and State, is only 
concerned about it as a civil institution. The prime object of 
the State in legislating upon the subject is to fix the res})onsi- 
bility for the child — the issue of marriage. Under Spartan law 
the State claimed the issue 'A\\(}l provided for the same, and was 
responsible for it, and was, therefore, indifferent as to who or 
what the father was, hence had no marriage law. 

Under the slave system of this country the master was 
responsible to the State, not alone for the issue of the slave, but 
for the slave himself, and therefore the mere civil quality of 
the relation was fixed, leaving the religious sanctions to the 
discretion of the master, by whom it was resorted to in some 
instances, and in others neglected. The free consent of the par- 
ties to the union being a recognized condition precedent. To 
all intents and purposes they were civilly man and wife. 

It is admitted that cruelties and wrongs were often per- 
petrated by individual slaveholders, but these were exce})tions 
to the rule, just as wrongs done in man}' another of the rela- 
tions of life are exceptions. Again, it is urged that the mode 
of i)unisliment was barbarous, and that it was often excessive. 
The same answer as that given above may be given to exces- 
sive punishment. The mode of punishment was the same as 
that administered to children in those days, and is common 
even now, by white ])eople all over the world. An^l what were 
those slaves but children, in their waywardness, idleness, 
ignorance and general perverseness. lUit it is not denied that 



22 THE NEGRO, 

there were good slaves in those days, just as there were good 
children, undeserving of punishment. 

Flogging, in the Navy and in the Merchant Marine, has 
been })racticed from time immemorial. This was regarded as 
a necessity growing out of the situation; a power given in 
order to discipline, and exercised over white men by all nations 
engaged in commerce or warfare on the high seas. And if on a 
ship and by a captain, why not on a plantation and by an 
overseer or manager, with the same reason existing for it? In 
fact better reasons for it, in the days of African slavery, could 
be given. This power has been abused on shipboard just as 
it has been on the plantation. But all power is liable to 
abuse, even the most salutary and necessary. 

The Negro Trader was an incident of the institution, and 
has always filled a conspicuous niche in the chamber of horrors 
assigned to it. He was the middle nian in the business, and a 
necessity so long as the business was carried on. It was held 
to be disreputable and degrading even by those who availed 
themselves of it as buyer and seller. There were brutal traders 
amongst them undoubtedly, and these gave the reputation of 
the calling; the most humane amo-ngst them not escaping it. 
It was perhaps the worst feature of the institution though a 
necessary one, and did more to bring odium upon it than any 
other. May not its counterpart be found in the procuress, the 
abortionist and other abominations of civilized society 
— the "uncomely parts" of our advanced civilization at its 
best, over which we would throw the vail of forgetfulness ? 

To justify the establishment of the institution of slavery 
in this country is no part of the purpose of the writer. The 
discussion of that subject and the defense of slavery is a topic 
of the past. Enough has been written about it, 3'ears ago, to 
enlighten any enquirer into its merits. But the writer has 
assumed that it is not out of place here to defend the South 
against the charge of wrong doing in her methods in dealing 
with the institution after it had been established by and under 
our colonial system — all of the colonies, to a greater or less ex- 
tent, being {)arties to it, and responsible for its existence. 

The system, when attacked, and when being pur- 
sued to its final extinction, had reached its highest de- 
development under the dictates of interest and human- 
ity, and was fast becoming patriarchal in its char- 
acter. The laws for its government grew into a wise 
conservatism, looking to a just restraint of the master and 
i\\(^ ]>rotecti()n of the slave, sustained by a ))ublic sentiment 
looking to such amelioration of the slaves' condition as was con- 
sistent with public safety and his own welfare under the system. 
The State could higislate only within the limits of the peculiar 
nature of the institution, never forgetting its arbitrary and 
absolute character, taking no steps in legislation which 'would 



THE NEGRO. 23 



lead to the working of its ovei'throw, however much such leg- 
islation might have been demanded by public sentiment — even 
the most enlightened, beyond the confines of the institution. 
Public opinion, beyond its limits could be heeded only when 
the State was prepared to take steps looking to its final extinc- 
tion, for this would have been the result of such legislation 
as would have met the demands of public opinion from with- 
out. 

The slave laws of Kentucky, and possibly others of the 
border States, were less restrictive than those of the cotton 
States. Indeed, the legislation of Kentucky jiointed unmistak- 
ably to eventual emancipation, and but for the intermeddling 
of abolitionists of the free States, that end would have been, 
most likely, reached before the war. The Kentucky negro was 
at a discount in the States further South, on account of what 
was regarded as his semi-free raising, such raising being consid- 
ered as inconsistent with the nature of the institution and 
therefore rendering the slave less valuable. The Kentuck}- ne- 
gro talked too much with his mouth! 

Some writer, in reply, in one of our monthlies, to Mr. 
Henry George's comparison of the wage-working system, with 
the slavery system, to the disparagement of the former, makes, 
to the astonished gaze, no doubt, of that gentleman, a grand 
flourish of a certain record said to have been captured by some 
enterprising Union soldier in Louisiana during the war, in 
which record was entered the dates on which, and the occa- 
sions for which, certain slaves in charge of the keeper of the 
record were chastised. Now, allowing this record to be other 
than a myth, it is almost certain it was ordered kept by some 
humane master, who wished to see that no cruel or unusual or 
unjust punishment was administered to his slaves. Overseers 
were not in the habit of keeping such records "just for fun." 

Mr. George might have replied, that these slaveholders never 
have resorted to a wholesale "lock-out" of their hands by 
which women and children would have been turned out to 
starve. Had they been cruel enough to do it, our humane "slave 
code" would have punished them severely' for doing it. Is 
there any law in New England to protect these wage-workers 
against starvation when the master of the shop or factory turns 
them out? \''erily the slave had some advantages over the 
wage-worker! Though he was at times buffeted for his faults, 
yet it was rare that that which nature abhors — a '" vacuum " 
—was to be found in his belly, and in the economy of human 
nature the belly is a great factor. The eating habit he formed 
in slavery adheres to him in freedom ! 

Cavil at and decry the institution as you may, one thing 
is certain about it, beyond all controversy — and that is, that it 
was a success ; whether you look at it on the human side or 
the Providential side — whether as man's devising to make 



24 THE NEGRO, 

money, or God's devising to make freemen out of barbarians. 
It came to naught finally, it is true, but only after many years, 
and after great things had been accomplished by it and through 
it; and seeing that it had this successful existence for so long a 
period, that fact, it may be argued with force, becomes its raison 
d'etre. 

The authors of the life of Lincoln, now being published in 
the Century Magazine, have gone out of their way in an arraign- 
ment of Mr. Davis, in the November, 1887, number, (to prove 
his "narrowness,") to say that it was of " that type which craved 
the exclusion of Northern teachers and the official censorship of 
shoolbooks to keep out abolition poison. " 

What these eulogists of Mr. Lincoln and defamers of Mr. 
Davis call the latter's "narrowness" was simply a sensible pre- 
caution on the part of the Southern people generally to prevent 
mischief and the intermeddling of strangers with their own 
private affairs about an institution guaranteed to them by the 
Constitution and binding upon these strangers, whether they 
were school teachers or the writers of school books. This cen- 
sorship complained of by these alleged historians was simply 
an effort to keep these parties from committing a crime, and 
to protect the country against the criminal intent when 
manifested. And yet with this censorship and this "narrow- 
ness" it is true that northern teachers and northern scliool 
books were to be found all over the South, instead of being ex- 
cluded as intimated by these writers. This Historical firm, 
Messrs. NicoUay & Hay, may be received without question as 
authority on " rail-splitting " in Illinois (though the State is 
nearly all prairie) but on Southern affairs they are to be re- 
ceived with much caution. As a further expression of their 
admiration for Mr. Davis, these historians say : " It was in 
perfect keeping with his character, and in perfect illustration 
of the paradoxical theories of his followers, that, holding the 
lash over fifty or a hundred slaves, or exercising an inflexible 
military dictatorship over nine millions of ' his people,' he 
would declaim in fervid oratory against the despotism of a ma- 
jority. " Is not the foregoing an infringement upon the trade 
mark of some lampooning political sheet? It is not history, 
and the authors mufil know it, if they know anything about the 
liistory of the Confederacy. The weakness of the Confederacy con- 
sisted more perhaps in the absence of "military dictatorship" 
than anything else. It was wanting in this prime element of a 
successful revolution. But it is probable that the whole sentence 
was framed for the purpose of introducing that "lash," which 
northern writers never tire of pojjping, just as though they 
never heard of it elsewhere, and that it was never used in their 
own section. Did the North send all of her whip})ing school 
teachers down South to larrup Southern boys ? Did not every 
northern "S(iueers"of that day in , northern schools sit with 



THE NEGRO, L>5 

birch in hand? Didn't the illustrious Prentiss, who Ijoasted 
that he cleared up whole forests in his school keeping days in 
Mississippi cutting switches for Southern boys, learn tluit line 
art in his New England home? And were the negroes that 
were lashed (all of whom were in fact but children) any better 
than southern and northern children who smarted under the 
Yankee lash of that day ? Some of us are wincing yet when a 
quickened memory calls up the •' rooted sorrow. " 

Possibly these historians failed to get their share of it — never 
sat amongst some '' fift\' or a hundred"' barefoot school boys 
with some doughty pedagogue " holding the lash over" them — 
and hence, perhaps, this bad history. A little more of Solo- 
mon's rod might have made better historians of them. The 
Scotchman was probably right when he answered that his peo- 
ple were great and wise because they were brought up on oat- 
meal, the shorter catechism and the rod. 

These senseless attempts to fix responsibility for the 
war and its conduct alone upon Mr. Davis, when many thous- 
ands are equally responsible, is simpl}' childish, if it is not 
contemptible. 

The purpose of the writer is to show what the Negro was be- 
fore his enfranchisement — what he was in his native land and 
what he was in slavery. For it is only as we understand his 
past that we can rightly judge his present, and can approach a 
solution of the problem of his future. 

We cannot cheat nature by our sophistries, blandishments 
or follies ; nor can we safely, at the dictate of mere sentimen- 
talism, or passion, or prejudice, for or against him, ignore the 
daws of the negro's being or shut our eyes to the laws of heredity 
as they affect peoples of every tribe and kindred. VVe want to 
ascertain if possible, if he is to be an element of perpetual dis- 
cord in our midst; if he is, to our free institutions, of an assim- 
ilating or non-assimilating character. In other words, we 
want to know as certainly as we possibly can, if in his mental 
constitution and otherwise, he realizes our ideal of the- true 
American. There is such an ideal based upon the homogeneity 
of the races out of which this great Republic has sprung. All 
these races belong to the two great European divisions of the 
human family — tlie Scandinavian and the Pho'uecian — the first, 
which is called by an author " the evergreen of human tribes, " 
predominating. It is thus seen that we are composed of the 
best elenjents of the human family. It is just such a mixture 
that has given to the great English nation its marvellous power 
and prominence — 3'ea leadership — in the great family of na- 
tions. Tacitus makes the ancient Britons a composite of the 
(iermans, Iberians and (lauls, uniting in them the two leading 
divisions of the human family before mentioned. 

" For all true human growth, effort and achievement, an 
ideal is acknowledged to be indispensible. And all men accord- 



2fi THE NEGRO, 

ingly, whose lives are based on principle, have set themselves 
an 'ideal more or less perfect. It is this which first deflects the 
will of what is base and turns the wayward life to what is 
holy. So much is true as mere philosophy." — Prof. Drum- 
mond. 

We have introduced into our political system a race equal 
in numbers to one-seventh of our whole population, which 
grossly violates this ideal, and which, collectively, had not the 
remotest conception, or knowledge of, any kind of government 
except that which they resisted as a wrong to themselves. 

Until the African was incorporated into the system, it was 
composed exclusively, of the descendants of the Ar3'an races. Is 
it possible to fuse this new, strange and alien element into the 
mass compounded originally of entirely homogeneous parts? 

Can there be a mixture of such discordant elements with- 
out serious disturbance ? Was it the part of wisdom to intro- 
duce this " blind Sampson," as the Negro is called, in allusion 
to his ignorance and numbers, into our system — an element 
drawn from the lowest type of the body politi<^ and vitalized by 
the Constitution with entire political equality with the origi- 
nal body? And in such numbers, too, as to give it great 
weight in determining the future policy and destiny of the 
country. Is it possible for it to be absorbed and to "disappear 
as some rivers do in deserts of barren sand?" 

Is the status of the negro in his relations to the govern- 
ment unalterably fixed? If a mistake has been made, as is 
contended by many, is it possible to correct it? Is it one of 
those revolutions that never go backward? Is there a sober 
•second thought that would change or modify his status, con- 
verting him into a harmless element? Granting that good 
and justice to the negro was the sole aim of those who fixed 
his status, have they not but emphasized the fine thought of 
Herbert Spencer, that people always try the worst methods of 
accomplishing a thing before they resort to the best? 

Tnle-s we are pre})ared to assert, in mere braggadocia 
style, that there is such a virtue and potency in our institutions 
that vve have but to apply them to heal all manner of race dis- 
eases and infirmities, and that we can open the eyes of the 
blind by sim})ly touching them, then a mistake has been 
made; a mistake so pal[tab]e that it makes its own demonstra- 
tion to all eyes not closed by prejudice. 

Has our [)olitical system the stomach of an ostrich, en- 
al)ling it to digest and assimilate anything it swallows, no mat- 
ter liow foreign, obnoxious and unwholesome it maybe? Or 
is it true, according to the belief of sonic, that undcM" anv cir- 
cumstances, (iod takes care of chihlren, fools and the TnittMl 
States ? 

•'Mr. l')eecher hopefully says, when the lion eats an ox, 
the ox becomes lion, not the lion ox. The illustration would 



THE NEGRO. 27 

be very neat, if it only illustrated. The lion happily h;is an 
instinct controlled by an unfailing law which determines what 
and when, and how much it -AyaW eat. If that instinct should 
fail, and lie should .some day eat a l)adly diseased ox, or should 
very much overeat, we might have on our hands a very sick 
lion.'' — Oar Country. 

Tlie true patriot, the true American, wlio reveres our polit- 
ical and social institutions, as they came from the hands of the 
fathers, as instinctively turns from the thought of this misal- 
liance as the ])lant leans from the object that wouUl shade it. 
Are we acting wisely in making experiments which may de- 
feat the high destiny for our country which we cherish, and 
which is accorded to us by statesmen and philosophers of the 
old world? Herbert Spencer says of us: "From biological 
truths, it is to be inferred that the eventual mixture of the 
allied varieties of the Aryan race forming the population will 
produce a more powerful type of man than has hitherto ex- 
isted " — thus emphaziug the })ostulate of an '' American ideal" 
set forth in a previous page o.'" this work. 

The political regeneration from tlie despotisms of the Old 
World, whereby was substituted the divine right of the Peo- 
ple for the divine right of Kings, wrought out 
in the New World by the successful establishment of 
our Confederated Republic, is threatened with dispar- 
agement and loss through unwise and excessive liberality. 
Have we not fallen from our high estate into a political degen- 
eration whose end is Anarchy? Have we not sold our charms 
too cheap in taking to our political arms the vile and degraded 
of every land ? Do we not begin to smell of the brothel, of the 
low dive where decency and virtue are strangled, and where 
vice is enthroned ? 

We see this degeneracy in its hard lines, stamped upon 
the features of the rising generation. Veneration, respect for 
law, for authority, and for age, are waning virtues. The young 
men of the present day are like Elihu, the son of Harachel, the 
Buzite, Job's youngest " miserable comforter," when he said, 
''I also will shew mine o})inion, for I am full of matter. We- 
liold mv belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to 
l)urstlike new bottles." Verily, the young man was very full. 
He was hardly of those young men who hid themselves when 
.Job went out to the gate through the city and prepared liis seat 
in the street. 

" Ah," said the Alabama girl to Oscar Wilde, " You should 
have seen how much brighter yon moon was;ind how much 
clearer this stream was, before the war T' 

There is a marked dispositicm on the part of the young 
men of the age to push the fathers aside. This is the spirit of 
irreverence, and it bodes no good to the country. Young men 
are naturally impatient; biding their time is .something they 



28 THE NEGRO. 

may comprehend, but is hard for them to practice. They need 
to be restrained for their own good and the good of all. AVis- 
dom is not an intuition, or inspiration, or an instinct ; it is a 
growth, born of experience, observation, reflection and study, 
especially in political matters. Now, how much of these have 
our cigarette politicians, our political kids, who will stand un- 
abashed " where angels dare not tread ;" who thrust themselves 
forward to guide and direct, and control the great councils of the 
country, and sit down on the older men, without so much as a 
sigh of pity for them ? 

It was this spirit of irreverence, that led the red Republi- 
cans of Congress to violate the Constitution in assuming for 
the General Government the prerogatives of the States in the 
matter of abolishing slavery and in the legislation that followed 
the unconstitutional measure ; the heedless young zealots rush- 
ing pell-mell into the grave error, regardless of the remon- 
sti-ances of their seignors and the cooler heads in the body. 
The chariot wheels of fanatacism were afire from their own 
motion, and no matter if the Constitution be scorched a little! 
It is this same spirit that has given us our New Theologies, 
with their comet-like filminess, of which one of the critics has 
said: "Though men admire the comet, as a phenomenon, they 
decidedly prefer to set their watches by the sun." ^ 

But this is anticipating somewhat another branch of the 
subject. We have seen that it was the policy of the Slave States 
to neglect if not to suppress the mental improvement of the 
slave. There was no growth in such improvement from gener- 
ation to generation except as chance gave it in the limited in- 
tercourse of the slave with the whites. Shut up on the planta- 
tion often in large numbers, with no one outside of his own color 
but the overseer to hold converse with, and he often of the most 
ignorant of the white class, his opportunities for oral instruc- 
tion were of the most limited character. And it is not surpris- 
ing that in his isolation and confinement to his own race in 
social intercourse, he should cherish and perpetuate the super- 
stititions and other peculiarities of the race, many of which can 
be traced back to the land of his ancestors, and rfiany of the 
worst of which are so indellibly im])res^:ed upon him that they 
cropout frequently to this day. To him there is often more 
virtue in the left hind foot of a rabbit killed in a grave yard 
after sunset, than there is in all the ballots you can put in his 
hand. 

It was reasonable to expect that hiibits should have been 
formed which would have made the performance of his allotted 
tasks easy and which would have rendered his constant over- 
siglit nnneciissary to a great extent. Uut the lessons of to-day 
on the contrary, were easily forgotten l)y to-morrow, and his 
daily oversight and ordering were necessary. This was i)ut a 
natnial consecjuence of the Jion-use of his intellectual facilities; 



THE NEGRO. 21) 

he had no responsibility beyond his daily routine of duties. 
His work was chosen for him and all of his wants were ])r()vi(led 
for by the master. He had notliing to think about. His life was 
almost wholly an animal life. And the natural and necessary 
effect upon himself of his mental dormancy for so great a period 
is clearly visible in his descendants of today. The animal 
nature of the race is active and vigorous while the mental 
faculties are inactive and weak. This is a logical conclusion 
concerning them and would be reached in the absence of abund- 
ant examples sustaining it, unless we are prepared to say that 
in their case the laws of habit and heredity are suspended and 
that they are an exception to the rule governing the whole hu- 
man family. 

There could scarcely be a stronger evidence of their mental 
vacuity, or of the existence of the mental faculties in only the 
embryotic state than theease with which they fall asleep under 
almost any circumstances. How like the infant in this respect ? 
and who shall measure the period of adolescence with the race ? 
Shall it be the slow growth of ages in conformity to the law of 
progress in other races, or shall they, touched by the magic 
wand of the ballot held out by their peculiar friends and admir- 
ers, leap at a single bound into full-orbed intellectual manhood ? 

If the physical African, in all his parts, is reproduced in 
this country, who shall deny to him a psycological transmission 
just as exact? Or is he transmuted into a more glorious image 
by the simple act of giving him a place of political equality in 
the constitution ? 

There might be found perhaps, by long and diligent search 
over the Southern country in old newspapers, accounts describ- 
ing the Africans introduced into this country in early days, but 
the writer has never had access to any of these accounts. It 
was his good fortune, after a few of these pages had gone to 
])ress, to find in a "Reminiscence" contributed to one of our 
Vicksburg papers ver}^ recently, by the venerable and much es- 
teemed Col. E. G. Cook, the following notice of one hundred 
native Africans brought to Warren county, Mississippi, by A. 
J. Tiirnbull as early as 1808 : 

"To return to those Africans, they were a strange kind of 
human being, very small, active, harmless. Had hardly minds 
sufficient to lie, which is a kind of invention, but would steal 
when convenient. They had no language that I could learn — 
made signs by fingers and facial expressions, so as to be better 
understood than one would supi)Ose. An African had a wife at 
our house. He was of a different importation, could spfak 
English, perform on the violin tunes for reels and jigs and was 
a large man and good natured, called Dublin. Another African 
was brought into the neighborhood and it was suggested to 
Dublin that he ought to call on the new-comer from his country. 
He made the visit on Sunday evening when he found the 



30 THE NEGRO. 

stranger to really be from the same locality in Africa and had 
been the means of capturing Dublin and delivering him to a 
slave ship. Their meeting was not pleasant. Dublin returned 
to his wife's house and was in great glee to know that his captor 
had himself been captured. They met afterwards but were 
never congenial. 

"About 1830 Mr. TurnbuU died. His son Andrew took 
charge of the estate and soon sold the land and removed the 
negroes to. Issaquena county. I saw Mr. A. TurnbuU since the 
war. To my question about the Africans, he replied that they 
were living in tlie third generation, and improved in personal 
appearance, could speak English with an African brogue and 
more than a hundred are legal voters in Issaquena county. " 

Some of our politicians and statesmen proceed upon the 
idea that our institutions are so elastic that they will bear any 
strain put upon them ; that an indefinite expansion and an all- 
embracing capacity are their proper functions. To these con- 
servatism seems to be a hateful term. Making haste slowly is 
a maxim which has found no place in their capacious political 
philosophy. Are they safe guides? Would not the country 
profit by the undoing of some of their hasty work ? 

We come now to consider the institution during the four 
last years of its existence— the period of the war between the 
States — the most eventful years of its history. Slavery existed 
undisturbed during the foreign wars of the Colonies and of the 
Union, and was in no wise affected by them. Our civil vyar 
grew out of disputes about slavery and necessarily the integrity 
of the institution was involved, and it was finally destroyed, 
though war was made upon the seceding Slave States to sup- 
press rebellion against the authority of the general govern- 
ment, as declared by President Lincoln in the call for troops, 
and not to abolish slavery. The overthrow of the institution, 
however, was a logical consequence of the failure of the seceding 
States to maintain their independence. 

The conduct of the slaves of the South during the war has 
been the subject of much comment and all of it, it may be said, 
with approval and the highest commendation. That the slave 
should have remained loyal to the master and the States warring 
about him and jbr /as- continued etislavement, was a surprise to the 
outside world, and it may be safely ;i(Hrmed that it could not 
have occurred with any other race. The wherefore of the fact 
has ])uzzled many brains and led to much speculation. A 
course on the }>art of these jjcople so against nature may well 
surprise us, and it is not strange if wrong conclusions should be 
reached as to it,s cause. Did they reason and think about it as 
men ordinarily do? And was their course a chosen one by 
themselves? ( 'ould th(!y have had a policy — a i)lan ? Or wns 
it a special interposition of Providence — a suspension, as it 
were, of the laws of nature in the race? 



THE NEGRO. lU 

These are questions more easily asked than answered, ^\'e 
have seen in the previous argument (if it holds good) tluit their 
ability to think about the matter was very limited. That they 
chose the course they pursued by preconcerted plan is not at all 
likely, or possible, it may be said. They held no '• shauris " 
(consulting councils) as their people do in Africa, anil the}' 
had no organ of public opinion with the race to guide and direct 
them. Vet they were not ignorant of the fact that the war was 
chiefly about them, and that their liberty or perpetual enslave- 
ment was the probable issue as to themselves — the stakes held 
in the scale. That they were an arm of the defence of the South, 
and to all ai)pearances a cheerl'ul one, is true, for they produced 
the crops which fed the Southern people and army (and olten 
too the Federal army) and they worked ui)on Southern fortihca- 
tions, and thousands of them cheerfully attended their masters 
in the field. To all outward appearance they were willing abet- 
tors of the South, at no time and in no place, except when in 
the immediate vicinity of the Northern army, manifesting the 
•slightest hostility to the South. And doubtless many of those 
that took up arms in those portions of the South 0(!cui)ied by 
the Federal armies, did it under threats and compulsion. 

Again, it is argued by their peculiar friends that their good 
conduct in the main dui'ing the war is attributable to their 
natural aiuiability and kindness of heart. There is nothing 
or but little in the character and conduct of the jace in theii- 
native land, as reported by Stanley and other explore)s, to sus- 
tain this conclusion; neither is there much, if anything, in 
their history since they were freed to support the theory. On 
the contrary there is much, if not everything, to disprove it as 
we shall see in the course of this investigation from statistics 
collected and to be submitted hereafter. 

Again, therie are those, mainly in the South, who allirm 
that their refraining from hostile acts toward the Southern peo- 
l)le during the war was owing to their natural cowardice. The 
accounts given by African explorers of their own frequent san- 
guinary conflicts with the natives, and their accounts of the 
wars between the native tribes, do not sanction this opinion, 
but rather discredit it. The reports of their conduct in the 
Union army on the field of battle, are conflicting. The re})ort 
of CJeneral Butler that they '• fought nobly " has always been 
laughed at. The circumstances of their lives are altogether 
against the conclusion that they could be converted immediately 
from slaveiy into brave soldiers. That they went into the 
army at all, voluntarily, with reason to believe that "■ no (juar- 
ter" would i)e shown them by Southern soldiers, is some proof of 
courage. Their conduct also, in their few unsucces.-^ful insur- 
rections in the South before the war, showed courage and enter- 
prise, though lacking in judgment. Their individual courage 
is suflicient under good leadership, probably, for all practical 



32 THE NEGRO. 

purposes. Their superstition and excitabilit}', together with 
the depressing and repressive effects of their long bondage, pre- 
dispose them to panics, but the bravest of other soldiers are lia- 
ble at times to the same. 

/Their apparent unconcern about the results of the war, m- 
so-far as it might affect themselves, and their good behavior to- 
ward their owners, at a time when they had it in their power to 
do immense harm, could not have been owing to a lack of 
desire to be free, for this desire is an instinct with the whole 
human family/and it may be said that the instinct extends 
even to the lower animals. All living creatures, from the lowest 
to the highest form, have it. 

There is nothing that would better illustrate the fact that 
the colored people of the South had this instinct in its fullest 
force, than a touching war incident told of one of them. A 
kind-hearted and indulgent master had two old family servants, 
man and wife, the patriarchs of the "quarters," whose tradi- 
tional liberties all are familiar with. When the Federal drum- 
beat was heard across the river, the old man declared he was 
never " gwine " to the Yankees. But on the third morning af- 
ter their arrival, the old man's cabin was found empty. The 
master, in his solicitude for the old people, followed them, and 
found them in an old field on the side of the river where the 
Federals were, the old man with a bush in his hand keeping 
the flies off his dead wife at his feet ! She had died from ex- 
posure. The master was shocked. He reproved the old man, 
reminding him of his comforts, the ample provision for them 
at his hon^e and of their many liberties, and his cruelty in tak- 
ing the old woman from all of these and causing her death. 
His only reply was, ''Yes, Mass'r ; its all true, hut she died 
free r 

Many are the cherished recollections in the South of the 
faithfulness and kindness of slaves during the war. The writer 
is gratified at being able to testify, himself, to a similar ex- 
perience, in that respect, with many others. He had a hired 
man in his charge, a bright young fellow, who had it in his 
power, repeatedly, when in close proximity to the Federal army, 
to have done him great harm, but he was ever faithful. He is 
now a leading and influential politician in the Republican 
party in an adjoining State. 

lUit in conclusion of this branch of the subject: Is the 
writer asked to wh;it he attributes the good conduct of the 
slaves of the South during the war ? It will be seen in the 
foregoing pages that he has but little regard for the popular be- 
liefs about it. So far as human agency in the matter is con- 
cerned, he believes that the respect (born, it may have been, of 
fear) in whicli the master was held by the slave, and the mild 
rule at home during the war, had much to do with it, but above 
these was the good sense, the dignity, and the self respect of the 



THE NEGRO. 33 

noble women of the South, whose own conduct was an ever- 
present inspiration of good conduct on the part of the slavp 

whl°h 'uh?I f "y" ''^^' ^'''' ^^" ^^''^"^ «f ^ k'^^l Providence 
which, while chastening in wrath, in mercy preserved. 

It might be argued plausibly, yea, with force, that had the 
subjection of this race to bondage and holding them in that 
condition been a wjong, and if we are to believe in the ulti- 

IhP irHn" /""'n r'"'^^'' ^'^' ^'" over-ruling Providence, then 
tne set time, to all human appearances, had come for the right- 

nnfpntl •"'"'"f ^"T ^^^ ^"Aerers from it. Hut they are ap- 
parently miraculously restrained from the exhibition of the re- 
sentinents which a sense of wrong and injustice alwavs begets. 

.^.^^AV, l\ ^^ '^^ f^ ^'"■'^ juncture unusual amiability 

and fidelity on the part of the race. It cannot be said that thi 
wiong was being righted by the Northern army or General 
Governinent and hence their quiescence, because the Govern- 
ment had public y proclaimed that the war was made to com- 
pel obedience to the rightful authority of the Union, and not to 
aoolish slavery. 

vuJ^^?P'"T P7'''"^« quite generally that the Negro is 
.vithout the virtue of gratitude and the passion of revenge It 
IS not to be supposed that the virtue spoken of would be culti- 
vatedlargely in a people who had always regarded themselves 
as objects of systematic wrong and oppression, and they may 
regardfayors shown them now as their due for the denial of 
them in the past. There is certainly a striking absence of the 
spirit oi revenge in them towards those who were cruel to them 
in slavery. Ihe writer, in a very large acquaintance with 
them and consequently a large acquaintance with their owners, 
from the very best to the most cruel, never has known of a case 
ot harbored revenge, or ofan act manifesting it. He is inclined 
to attribute the fact, as in the case of gratitude, to a want of 
cultivation, or to the feeling being substituted by something 
else which to them was its equivalent, however we mi-ht re- 
gard it, for certainly, since their emancipation, the same 
springs ot action that govern the human family generally are 
being discovered in them, modified, it is true, by circumst/nces 
and coming slowly to the surface, as is to be exi.ecied in case of 
suppressed faculties. And this brings us back to the conclusion 
that time alone can eradicate what has been planted in the 
past, and lift the race up to the highest point of development of 
which they are susceptible. 

The sentiments of the writer, as at times expressed in the 
foregoing pages, are the outgrowth of much observation and of 
much patient investigation. lie has endeavored to treat the 
subject philosophically, and in the light of facts and history 
In what IS t^o follow, he will be guided by tiie .same iu-inci,)les" 
and any deductions, favorable cr unfavorable, resulting from 



34 THE NEGRO. 

such mode of treatment of the subject, whether they be agreeable 
nr otherwise will have to be borne with. 

And let it be said that with all of the trouble they nave oc- 
casioned, with all of their foolish ways and their crimes and 
with all'of the foolish things that have been done abou^ them 
itisaheartof stone that can look upon the race with other 
elings thin those of pity and the deepest commiseration and 
svmpathy Their helplessness in the depths of^heii ignorance 
andde ilvity and liability to be led astray under the evi in- 
fluences that'surround theii, make ^bem objec « ^^^^^^^^^ 
tude to any Christian heart, to any real philanthropist ana 

friend of the race. 



PART SECOND. 



AS HE IS, 



Slavery Abolished — The loth Amendment — Senator Pendle- 
ton's Views — President Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion a " Joke " — The Slave Legitimately Freed by State Action 
— The 14th Amendment Conferring Citizenship on the Negro — 
It Contains a Trojan Horse — The 15th Amendment Passed — 
The Embarrassment Relieved — The Southern States Acquiesce 
— Mr. Seward's Advice to Them — Mississippi Strikes the Word 
" White " from Her Constitution — President Johnston's Views 
on the Question — The Teachings of Science — The Teachings of 
Common Sense — Professors Drummond and Sumner — The De- 
basement of Our Precious Privileges — Senator Ingalls on Negro 
Suffrage — A Negro Preacher on the Same — Effect of a Repeal of 
the 15th Amendment — The Color Line Safest for the South — 
Reconstruction — The Year of Jubilee — Doctor Adam Clark on 
Jewish Bondage — The Negro Sinned Against More than Sin- 
ning — Political Power Wrenched from His Hands — The Beaver 
and the Dog — The South Rising in Her Might and Madness — 
Is the Negro Better Now than AVhen a Slave — The Answer of 
Our Penitentiaries, Jails and Work Houses — Excuses for the 
Negro — The Nameless Crime — Colored Female Inmates of Pen- 
itentiary and Work House — Too Much Expected of the Negro — 
Mulattos in the Penitentiary — Importance of the Subject — 
Scientists on Pluman Hybridism — Fred Douglass and other 
Lights on Amalgamation — Chief Justice Tane}' and Mr. Lin- 
coln on the Negro — Emmerson as a Philosopher and Prophet — 
The Negro in Council — The Negro and Education. 



" Plato's prisoner, if not out of the cave, has at least his face to the light. ^^ 

Having in the previous pages treated preliminarily of the 
Negro .4.S He Was and is in his native land, and as he was in 
slavery, we come now to consider him As He Js, or as he has 
been since his Emancii)ation, and his investiture with the 



36 THE NEGRO. 

rights and responsibilities of Citizenship. Of course within 
the narrow compass of as small a work as this, it can be done 
only cursorily ; and it is done within a comparatively narrow 
space of observation ; though not thereby necessarily without 
sufficient data and authoritative statement to give it value or to 
limit its application. 

The condition of the race when slavery was abolished was 
so similar in all of the States where tlje institution existed, that 
it may with propriety be assumed that what is true of any ot 
its parts is true of the whole, and that, therefore to learn the 
eflfect of freedom and the bestowment of the rightof suftrage 
upon the race generally, it is only necessary to see it partially 
-say within the limits of a single State. 1 he observer of cur- 
rent events in connection with the race, in the several States, 
must have noticed how alike they all are; and the po icy ot the 
several States in which the Negro abounds it may be well to 
remark, has been pretty much the same, with reierence to him, 
ever since political power came back into the hands ot the 
Southern white people. A common interest— or danger— has 
begotten a uniformity of action, substantially. 

The overthrow of the institution of slavery in the United 
States was the natural result of the failure of the Confederate 
States to maintain their independence. But it may be serious- 
ly questioned if it was a legitimate effect, in so far as it was ac- 
complished by the action of the general government. In the 
discussion of the 13th amendment to the Constitution in the 
United States Senate in January, 1865, the Hon. (tCO. H. 1 en- 
dleton, Senator from Ohio, made an argument based upon the 
idea that the question was wholly a matter for State action ; 
that only the States assenting would be bound by it, which 
never has been answered. And judging by the long line ot pre- 
cedents, in the States rights direction, in the Supreme ( ourt ot 
the United States, it is safe to say that that august tribunal, 
had the question ever gone before it, would have agreed with 
the Senator from Ohio. 

However, the question was definitely and authoritatively 
settled subsequently by State action and by which action only 
the slaves were legitimately freed. President I.incoln s procla- 
mation of emancipation— his "last card " as he called if: (blame s 
20 years of Congress) was a mere bndum. fidmen, which never 
commanded the respect of the country and which could hardly 
have had his own respect. It was quite appropriate tor the 
President, when he assembled his Cabinet to consider his proc- 
lamation, " to open the proceedings by reading to the ama/ed 
secretaries nearly all of Artemus Ward's book, then just pub- 
lished. " (Don Piatt in North American Review, December, 
1880.) 11 H would let the Honorable Secretaries see that he 
could excel Artemus in the hugeness of his jokes ! There was as 
much authority for this proclamation abolishing slavery, in the 



THE NEGRO. 37 

ten commandments of the Bible or the twelve tables of Rome, 
as there was in the Constitution or Laws of the United States'. 
Mr. Lincoln's want of confidence in his authority for this proc- 
lamation is clearly visible in the speech he made at the Wiiite 
House on the night of the day of the passage by Congress of the 
loth Amendment, February 1st, 18(;o, in whioli he said : "A 
question might be raised whether the proclamation was really 
valid. It might be urged that it only aided those who came 
into our lines, and that it was inoperative as to those who did 
not give themselves up; or that it would have no effect upon 
the children of slaves born thereafter ; in fact it would be urged 
that it did not meet the evil. But the amendment is a king's 
cure-all for all the evils. It winds the whole thing up. " 

Not so, however, in fact. The "king's cure all " was the 
action of the slave States, and our colored friends to be safe and 
certain should ascertain the date, and make it " the day we cel- 
ebrate. " • Then they would have an old-fashioned Conkitutional 
celebration — standing upon the rock of the Constitution and 
not upon the sand of Lincoln's proclamation. Will they ever 
get things right? 

Another thing in this connection. One of these days (if 
they have not done so already ) our colored people will be can- 
onizing Lincoln — elevating him to sainthood, as the great de- 
liverer of their race. lUit Lincoln, unfortunately^ is the wrong 
man in this right place. Secession and not slavery was what 
he sought to abolish. Listen to himself in his letter to Horace 
Greely, August 22nd, 18G2 : " My paraynount object is to save the 
Union and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the 
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could 
do it by freeing all the slaves I would do it ; if I could save it by 
freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would also do that. " 
He never intended to and never did use this "last card " until 
he was in extremis. If you would learn how extreme the case 
was about the tim.e he issued the proclamation, read Blaine on 
this period of the war. 

In a letter to Senator Gilmer in December, ISGO, after his 
election, he said : " I have no thought of recommending the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." And in his 
inaugural addi-ess in ^larch, 18G1, he said of a proposed amend- 
ment to the Constitution, saying the Federal (Jovernment 
shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States 
including that of persons held to service. "7 have no objection 
to its being made express and irrevocable.^'' ( Fjincoln article, Cen- 
tury, November, 1887.) 

To the benevolent and reverential mind the smashing of 
idols is an ungracious business, but to " vindicate the truth of 
history " and have the true gods worshipped, is one of the sacred 
duties of the faithful chronicler of events, cost him as many 
tears as it may ! 



38 THE NEGRO, 

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution conferred citizen- 
ship upon the Xegro, but it contained a Trojan horse — commit- 
ted a fatal blunder — as the special guardians of the Negro's inter- 
ests afterwards concluded, in its providing for a lessened repre- 
sentation in Congress for any State which should refuse the 
ballot to the enfranchised Negro — thereby acknowledging the 
States right to refuse it. 

Subsequently the great panacea, the loth Amendment, 
which slammed the door in the face of the admission of the 14th 
— shut it out by bars and bolts — was passed, and is in the words 
following, to-wit: "The right of citizens of the United States 
to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or 
by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of 
servitude." "The Congress shall have power to enforce this 
article by appropriate legislation. " 

The Southern States, sooner than incur the further wrath 
of the dominant and relentless party in power, and to get a 
representation in Congress — even though they should have to 
"roll in the dust" and "eat dirt" and "creep in on their 
bellies " and " be represented by Jackalls, Jackasses and scoun- 
drels rather than not be represented at all, " as advised by jNIr. 
Seward, in the interview of the Hon. Charles Gayerrie with 
him, as reported by Mr. G. in the Bivouac for February, 1886 — 
acquiesced in the amendment. And Mississippi, in convention, 
in 1868, struck the word " white " from the provision of her 
Constitution declaring who should be qualified voters, and in 
the following year the Constitution was ratified by the people ; 
thus letting in this flood tide originating on the benighted 
shores of Africa to mingle with a stream purified by the learn- 
ing, the wisdom, the valor, and the patriotism of countless ages. 
And thus was this unholy, because unjust, alliance consummated. 
What a sacrilege! What adegradation of the highest privilege 
belonging to civilized man ! And in these pages will be dis- 
covered what an " lUiad of woes " it has been! 

We have seen that the three amendments to the Constitu- 
tion conferred a trinity of supposed blessings upon the Negro : 
The first abolishing slavery ; the second conferring citizenship, 
and the third giving unrestricted suffrage. It is admitted and 
acknowledged that the first was a logical result of the war, or 
rathei- of the South's defeat ( which result it may be added, has 
but a small " harvest of barren regrets. " It is perhaps the least 
regretful of all the " woes" that followed defeat.) The 14th and 
loth Amendments were not, like the KUh, logical results of the 
war. The question of suffrage rightfully belonged to the States 
and not to the General Government. President .Johnston said: 
"suffrage was a ])rivileg(;, not a right — that the subject belonged 
to the States not to the Federal Government. "" Again : " He 
could not be a party to any usurping scheme that was in con- 



IHE NEGRO. 39 

flict with the organic law, nor dictate to the States in regard to 
suffrage. On this hitter point the (Cabinet, with the exception 
of Mr. Seward, were at first equally decided. " (Gideon \Vells 
in North American Review for July, 1887, in a letter of Sep- 
tember 4th, 1875, to Senator Fowler. '' 

The authority of other great names in the party then in 
2)0wer might be quoted in support of these assertions, but the 
voices of these were drowned in the clamor of the sans culotte, 
who sprung to their feet and threw their caps in the air when 
the flag of the Confederacy was lowered. The latter seized the 
helm and ran the ship of State upon these rocks, making these 
late slaves and later " wards of the Nation " their {)olitical 
equals. M'as this sense or nonsense? Was it not a crime 
against that liberty in whose name it was done, against that 
civilization which gave these crazy zealots and wrong-doers 
the power they wielded? 

Science tells us that continuance of life is dependent 
upon a perfect correspondence of the organism. Are we not 
getting so far "off" in the matter of correspondence and envi- 
ronment in our political organism, that death must inevitably 
ensue, instead of life being prolonged? We might go on in our 
course with safety under simple perturbations of the needle, 
but if our instrument becomes deranged or new attractions 
should turn us far away from our polar star, we go upon the 
rocks and founder. 

Science tells us, moreover, that " longevity is associated 
with com})lexity, and complexity in organisms is manifested 
by the successive additions of correspondences, each richer and 
larger than those which had gone before." Are the additions 
we have made of late years " richer and larger ?" Are they not 
rather a putrescent mass reeking with corruption — " putrifying 
sores " whose end is to corrupt the whole ? Prof Drummond 
says : " An altogether new corresjiondence appearing suddenly 
without shadow or prophecy would be a violation of continuity. 
What we should expect would be something new, and yet some 
thing we were already prepared for. Weshould look for further 
development in harmony with current develoj)ments ; the ex- 
tension of a last and highest correspondence in a new and higher 
direction." 

Common Sense has a voice too, as well as Science, which 
speaks to us after the manner of Prof Sumner, in saying: " So 
long as a nation has not lost faith in itself, it is possible for it 
to remodel its institutions to any extent. If it gives way to 
sentimontalism, or sensibility, or political mysticism, or adopts 
an affectation of radicalism or any other ism, or molds its insti- 
tutions so as to round out to a more complete fulfillment of 
somebody's description of the Universe, it may fall into an era 
of revolution and political insecurity which will break oti' the 



4:0 THE NEGRO. 

continuity of the National life, and make order and secure 
progress impossible." 

Some of our so-called statesmen would persuade us that a 
man from any clime is fitted for our institutions, can compre- 
hend our complex system of government ; that he needs only 
to be planted in the garden of our privileges togrow, asit were 
by a sort of spontaneous generation — a heresy in political sci- 
ence, as well as in natural science, for the principle, '_• Omne vi- 
vum ex vivo " (no life without antecedent life), applies in the one 
as well as the other — into a full-blown and fully-equipped 
American citizen. 

Having built up our institutions and pronounced them 
"good," we may rest from our labors in building — but not in 
watching. We have something worth preserving and it may 
become, if it is not already so, necessary to close our doors even at 
the expense of our reputation for hospitality. Our "asylum 
for the oppressed of other lands" is fast becoming alazar-house, 
an iniirmary, a breeding-place of corruption, of political and so- 
cial heresies — a land of the " free " to unsettle the foundations of 
society, and of the "brave " to destroy our household gods and 
lay unhallowed hands upon our sacred altars. Our institutions 
have cost too much and are too valuable to be vandalized thus. 
If we make mistakes about these people (the Negroes) in 
any direction, even from the best of motives, we only harm 
them, and when the mistakes about them involve the happiness 
and general welfare of another race, they become criminal and 
under the inexorable penalties attaching to a crime against 
nature, against human law or against divine law, we must suf- 
fer, no matter that what we do is from the best of motives — 
springs from the highest instinct of our natures. And it is 
only as we recognize this great fact, can we rightly apprehend 
our great responsibilities. " I didn't go to do it," is an excuse 
that never mended a broken saucer or replaced it. The penalty 
is not reached or removed by the excuse. After all of our ex- 
planations, there is still a missing saucer — to be paid for. 

The introduction of this new and baser element into the 

/suffrage of the country as surel}^ tended to its degredation as 

/would the mixing of a base metal with the current coin of our 

/country tend to degrade it. The natural and inevitable conse- 

/ quence is not to be escaped. We have felt it unmistakeably in 

the ])ast; we are feeling it to-day. Its corrupting influence is 

as much felt now as it was before the first freed slave had 

learned the al})habet. 

The alloy in the suffrage of the whole country amounts to 
about one-seventh or one-eighth : in the South to near one-half, 
audit rc(iuires no metalurgist to discover its baseness in the 
South, it " smells to heaven." 

Senator Ingalls, who is given to a candid expression of his 
sentiments regardless of friend or foe, is reported as having 



THE NEGRO, 41 

said in a speech recently, that Negro suffrage liad proved a fail- 
ure. Such candor from the Senator is in keeping with what 
he said in the North Atuerican Ileview for April, 1SS() : '• Had 
the Republican part}^ been courageous or intelligent enough 
to have atteinj)ted the reconstruction of the South through its 
brains rather than through its numbers, the most lamentable 
chapter in our history might have been unwritten. The true 
regeneration of the South dates from the final withdrawal of 
National intervention in 1877.'' Brave words these, to have 
been uttered by a pronounced Republican. 

One of their own race, an intelligent and respected 
minister in the A. M. E. Church, at Vicksburg, Miss., 
in commenting upon one of our elections, said, in his jjajjcr, 
the Zion Messenger, for August. 1886, " .we will say, however, 
that the mass of Negroes, would do themselves and their coun- 
try more good if the ballot was out of their reach." 

In the Republic of Liberia, in Africa, suffragt-; is not uni- 
versal, it we are to believe the reports i)ublished, but is limited 
to certain classes, and the native heathen is wholly excluded 
from it. So that our government is more liberal in this matter 
than the Negro government of Liberia ! 

Should Congress, in its wisdon), or the Republican party 
(in case of its accession to power again) in disappointment at 
the workings of Negro suffrage, take from the Negro the j)rivi- 
lege of voting, as conferred under the loth Amendment, then 
the question will drop back to where it rightfully belongs — 
to the States. These may or may not, in their wisdom, and in 
the exigencies of the case, refuse to follow the example of Con- 
gress. Can they be coerced into it, ar can Congress or the Fed- 
eral Government, under the provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States, dictate to the States in the matter of ivho shall be 
qualified electors? 

The Constitution expressly provides in Sec. 2, Ai't. 1, as 
follows: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of 
members chosen every second year by the people of the several 
States, and the electors in such States shall have the qualifica- 
tions requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the 
State Legislature." 

Have we not here a clear concession, in this very first Ar- 
ticle of the Constitution, of the doctrine of States Rights in 
the matter of suffrage ? and does not this first Article vindicate 
the ])osition of President Johnson and his Republican Cabinet 
(" at first '') except Mr. Seward, on the (juestion of negro suf- 
frage? according to the letter of Secretai-y of the Navy Gideon 
Wells, quoted above. 

Mark the language: " Members chosen every second year 
by the people of the several States^ Who are the ])eople of the 
" several States," but those so recognized by them ? Again, in 
the qualifications of electors they " shall have the (jualifica- 



42 THE NEGRO. 

tions requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the 
State Legislature ;" and who but the States shall settle the ques- 
tion of fjualijication, and decide ivho shall be electors? It is clearly 
left to the States in this Article, and is nowhere claimed for 
Congress, or the Federal Government, in the Constitution, ex- 
cept in the loth Amendment. 

Should a Republican Congress over-ride this Article of the 
Constitution — ■" spit " upon it as in the past — still the gauntlet 
of the States has to be run after the necessary two-thirds vote of 
both houses, in proposing another and new Sufllrage Amend- 
ment, for the amendment does not become a part of the Consti- 
tuiton until ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the 
States, or by conventions of the people in t/iree-fourths of the 
States (See article on Amendments to the Constitution), thus 
recognizing again the supremacy of the States in the matter of 
suffVage. The States are the final arbiters in all proposed 
amendments. 

Such is or ivas the Constitution eulogized justly by the Cen- 
tennial Constitutional Celebration Committee of Philadelphia, 
in the following words: 

" L^nique in origin ; without a protot3'pe in design ; of en- 
during strength and of phenomenal success, in the history of 
political philosophy the Constitution stands alone. Tested by 
danger and adversity, as well as by peace and prosperity, en- 
deared to us by tradition and hallowed by experience, it has be- 
come the object of our reverential and affectionate regard." 

There is an urgent call and need for a Renaissance in our 
political life. We want a revival of orthodox political faiths 
resting upon the principle laid down by the Fathers. There is 
a disposition too prevalent, to cover up and hide away the sacred 
trust by latitudinous construction, and even to "spit upon it" 
when it stands in the way of our darling projects. The Con- 
stitution, so much admired and justly praised by the Philadel- 
phia committee, has too often fallen among thieves and been 
stripped of its raiment. Its gaping wounds need to be " bound 
up." 

The traditional and Constitutional doctiine of States 
Rights needs to be reaffirmed. It is pre-eminently conserva- 
tive in its character. We are without the diverse languages 
of Europe to act as barriers to the |)rogress of pernicious ideas. 
With our only one language, poj)ular and dangerous ideas sweep 
over the country, wide as it is, in an incredibly short time. 
We must preserve these State lines as halting-places where 
these strangers can be examined to see if they are in the faith 
of the fathers; if tlieycan frame to pronounce aright the shib- 
boleth of the Constitution, and if they cannot, then they can 
be slain at these i)assages of Jordan as political heresies. 

Jf the races are to continue to live together, and if the 
negro is to continue to exercise the right of suffrage, it is better 



THE NEGRO. 43 

for both races that they should divide on the color line in pol- 
itics, although that is a serious evil ; but it is not so serious as 
would be the evil of a divided negro vote. If they were divided 
and if we had two regular parties in the South, the scramble for 
the negro vote would be simply disgusting. It would lead 
finally to the incurable demoralization of both races, and end 
in social equality. There would be no esca})e from it. "S'ou 
cannot hold close political rehations with a man — perhaps come 
under obligations to him — and at the same time set \^\^ the 
barrier of absolute social distinction. The two things break 
under the weight of their inconsistenc}'. 

When the color line has been broken in politics, there has 
been the greatest demoralization. Fusions, dishonorable com- 
promises, secret understandings which shun the liglit because 
they can't bear it, briberies and promises that bring disgrace 
whether they are kept or broken, are the legitimate fruits of a 
divided negro vote. It looks to have been a merciful inter])0si- 
tion of Providence that the Negro's fealty to the Republican 
party has Vjeen kept so nearly inviolate for so long a time. 

No sooner than the question of Negro sufirage had been 
settled by Congress and the action of the States, and the "la- 
mentable chapter " of Reconstruction was opened, did the 
movement of the " bottom rail " for the " top " begin all through 
the South, stimulated by a horde of carpet-baggers that " covered 
the land" like the frogs of Egypt when Moses " smote the wa- 
ters that were in the river." They came with their divinations 
and enchantments, and loyal league charters, and their prom- 
ise of " a mule and forty acres" to work upon the imaginations 
and fire the hearts of the lately enfranchised. Many of them 
were skilled as well as unscrupulous workmen in their chosen 
field of labor. 

Soon from every hill-top and every valley the Negro orator 
was lifting up his voice and proclaiming the year of Jubilee as 
being at hand, that a Moses, in General Grant, was leading 
them to the land of Canaan ; the carpet-bagger, meantime, i)at- 
ting them on the back and gently intimating that as they had 
made the country, it would be a very venial offense to "spoil 
the Egyptians " in the way, and that all the oflfices in rebeldom 
belonged to them — and their friends ! 

Such was life in the South in those royal days, when recon- 
struction was attempted through her "numbers," instead of 
through her '' brains;" and thus was organized the 'hell "of 
those bitter and blasting days. P.ut every crime and every 
cruelty that marked the dismal i)eriod was but the bringing 
forth of that which was "conceived in sin" and tliongh j)ower 
has been wrenched from the alien and ignoble hands in which 
it was lodged, there remains a menace, constant enough to re- 
quire ceaseless vigilance. The .soothing cry of some of our Pol- 
iticians and Journalists of " AlTs well,"— that the Negro is con- 



44 THE NEGRO. 

tent and satisfied with the situation, is a delusion, and would 
be a snare but for some of our doubting Thomases. To have 
tasted power once and not to desire it again is not in Negro 
human nature — or any other kind of human nature, for that 
matter. Under the influence of the flattering attentions paid 
him, and owing to his equality of privileges before the law, 
he doubtless regards everything withheld from him and ac- 
corded to the whites as an injustice. And why shouldn't he, 
since he has no sense of modesty to overcome the influences 
named? \Ve must not lose sight of the logic of the situation 
with him and condemn him or find fault with him unheard. 
He is entitled, in our judgment of his conduct, to the full ben- 
efit of his environments, and seeing that he is weak of mind 
by reason of his lack of opportunities, and the eclipse of ages 
from which he has just emerged, we should judge him charita- 
bly while guarding against the harm he maj^ do. It was a blind 
Samson that pulled down the pillars of the house which tell 
upon the Philistines! 

See with what alacrit}^ they have come to the front, at At- 
lanta since the Prohibition election, (and since the foregoing 
was written). And why shouldn't they, after being courted so 
assidiously by both parties? And seeing they have as much 
right to hold office, under the law, as anybody else : 

BE.\KrXG FRUIT — THE NEGROES OF ATLANTA SEEKING OFFICIAL 
POSITION IX THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 

Atlanta, Nov. 30. — The prominent recognition given the 
negroes during the Prohibition campaign has inspii-ed their 
leaders to essay roles of more distinction in local politics. They 
hearkened to the orators of the respective sides who took occa- 
sion to impress them with the importance of their position, 
and before the question has been oflicially settled, several ne- 
groes have announced themselves as candidates for the city 
council. This is but the outgrowth of the assurance given them 
by the Anti-Prohibitionists in return for the wet ballot. At 
least, this is what the i'rohibitionists are claiming. The move- 
ment has created considerable feeling among the whites and 
especially among the Prohibitionists, who attribute these 
ste])s on the part of the negroes to the encouragement given by 
tlie antis. The negroes will vote solid for the candidate of 
their (iolor, and it would not be surprising to see at least three 
elected to Lhe city council, which is composed of but six mem- 
bers." 

Doctor Adam Chiik, speaking of the Israelites, in his notes 
on Hebrews IV, says : '' Their minds had been debased by their 
Egyptian bondage, and they scarcely ever rose to mental nobil- 
ity. " This (lebasemeMt was transmitted from sire to son and 
clung to them throughout the long years of freedom in the 
Promised Land, and led finally to the catrastrophe of the Dis- 



THE NEGRO. 45 

persion. A writer in the Presbyterian Quarterly for July, 1887, 
on "The Restoration of the Jews" quotes the learned Jerome as 
saying: "The ten tribes still remained in the land of their 
original deportation " and he adds "they were servilely cap- 
tive." The old Egyptian leaven of slavery still coursing their 
veins. 

The Negro has been sinned against by his jieculiar friends 
as much or more than he has sinned against himself, by 
being ])ut by them in a falf-e and illogical position. They ])ut 
upon him responsibilities which he was not able to bear, and 
forced the ^^outhern people to wrench (as said a few pages back) 
from his and his associates (the carpet-bagger's) hands, the 
power they wielded. Candor compels the true historian to 
characterize the methods largely employed in ellecting the 
change, as above, and the wonder now is, both abroad and at 
home, that an end was not put to the horrid evils endured, by 
any means, long before it was. This also was an evil, but where 
does the responsibility lie ? It runs directly back to the authors 
of the measures which made the situation possible. The South- 
ern people were in the predicament of the beaver that was being 
])ursued by a dog. lie had dodged, and dived, and swam, with 
the dog gaining on him all the while, and at last in his ex- 
tremity he climbed a tree, so the relator of the story said. But 
a listener, who knew the animal better, said "a beaver cant 
climb. " The story-teller replied : " I don't care, the dog was 
so close to him that he was hound to climb that tree ! " If the 
whites carried the elections in some places where the Negro was 
largely in the majority it was because they wcvebouvd to do it; 
the dog was too close to them ! Their extremity made it neces- 
-sarv to do impossible things. When the South rose in her 
might and in her madness, under the repressive, oppressive, 
degrading and paralyzing policy of the con<|uerer, as manifested 
in the rule of the Negro and carpet-bagger, and performed the 
miracle of lifting herself up in a basket, she but reasserted the 
dignity of her manhood and uttered a prophesy of her present 
display of energy and enterprise, giving point and emphasis to 
the fine irony (in the minds of those who so construe it) of ^Ir. 
Lamar's quotation from the Psalmist, in his Sumner speech — 
or some other speech — "thy gentleness hath made us great. " The 
" uses of adversity " are numerous, though sometimes very pain- 
ful. It was a virtual revolt against existing authority resting 
in unworthy hands and exercised oppressively. It was a blood- 
less revolution mainly, but none the less effective that it was 
bloodless. The aim was to overthrow the rulers, and not the 
laws and constitutions under which they ruled, for these in the 
main were acceptible, and so settled was this determination 
that the means employed was governed alone by the necessities 
of the case. The plea of necessity justified the movement in its 
whole sweep, though some regretable acts attended it, and it is 



4:6 THE NEGRO, 

a piece of history that will repeat itself if the necessity shall 
ever again arise. 

The Southern people challenge the world to produce an 
instance of so necessary and salutary a revolution being effected 
at so small an expenditure of life and so slight a shock to exist- 
ing institutions. It is in fact the crowning glory of the life of 
the South, and it is questionable if any other form of civilization 
than her own peculiar form could have accomplished it. Just 
out of an unsuccessful contest with the General government, 
and that government in sympathy with the alien State rulers, 
the undertaking was a desperate one, requiring all of the extra- 
ordinary courage and prudence exhibited. 

Some of the unclean birds of passage lingered in the South 
after their rookeries were broken up in 1876, and have_ used 
their special and exceptional talents and some of their ill-^ 
gotten gains in handling the negroes on the shares with some of 
our own Southern white men of easy virtue. Their influence 
has been sought and availed of under the plea of expediency, 
but at the expense of self-respect, and the corruption (some- 
times) of men who once bore good characters. The smell of fire 
is on too many garments. 

The catchphrase of " practical politics" has been a snare to 
some of our thoughtless people as well as a pretext for the da- 
signing and unscrupulous. Expediency is oftener a refuge of 
lies, of cowardice and venality than of prudence and wisdom. 
It is a mere shift, an ephemera of ignoble life, while principle 
is immortal, is a strong-hold in which character is built up. A 
manor a party that lives by expedients, unsupported by prin- 
ciple, is like a barrel without hoops, that tumbles to pieces at a 
touch, or like a wheel without a tire, that breaks down at the 
first revolution. 

Is the Negro any better to-day than he was ten or twenty 
years ago? Or than when he was a slave? That question can 
be answered only approximately, or only in the light of the fig- 
ures given in our latest statistics of crime; and even then we 
can only compare these with current opinions u])on the subject 
for the complete data necessary for such comparison, though it 
may exist, is not at hand. That the negro is wiser, in so far as 
books can give him wisdom, is admitted. But we are more con- 
cerned to know of him, as of everybody else, if he is good, than 
if he i:- wise in book-learning. (Jood people are in greater de- 
mand than learned people. The State can get along with but 
few of the latter, but to be happy and prosperous, she must have 
many of the former. 

How stands our ' brother in black" under this head? 
How does he compare with his "brother in white?" Let the 
State, and the corporate authorities of the State answer. A 
painstaking and correct analysis and classification of the report 



THE NEGRO. 47 

of the Lessees and Physician of the Penitentiary of Mississippi, 
to the Legislature of the iState, at its sitting for the winter of 
ISSo-SG, furnishes the following ligures: 

Total number of convicts on Register December 1st, 1885, 
as per report 812 

Classified as follows: 

White, males 103 

Colored, males 676 

( *olored, fem ales 32 

I n d i a n , m a 1 e s 1 

812 

Total colored ' 708 

Committed for the following offences: 

For murder 77 

For assault with intent to kill \\) 

For manslaughter 37 

For shooting with intent to kill 3 

For poisoning 4 

For accessory to murder 1 

For rape 12 

For attempt to commit rape 20 

For arson 26 

For grand larce ny 255 

For larcenj^ 37 

For burglary and larceny 27 

For burglary 91 

For robbery 14 

For forgery 13 

For setting fire to public building 1 

For crimes against nature (5 

For miscegenation 1 

For receiving stolen property 4 

For })erjury 6 

For incest 4 

For obtaining goods under false pretences 7 

For seduction 3 

For embezzleme n t 2 

For attempt at bribery 1 

For attemj)t at highway robber}' 2 

For selling spoiled meat 1 

For bigam y 2 

For altering mark 1 

For resisting officer 1 

70S 

This table covers the separate tables for mulatoes and col- 
ored females which follow it, The latter are taken out of the 
above to show the character of their crimes. 



i8 THE NEGRO. 

Classification of crimes of mulattoes: 

For mnrder 16 

For m ansl augh ter 11 

For sliooting with intent to kill 2 

For assaul t and battery 10 

For poisoning 1 

For rape ,2 

For attempt to commit rape 5 

For seduction 1 

For arson 4 

For arson and larceny 1 

For burglary 11 

For attempt to commit burglary 1 

For robbery 2 

For high way robbery 1 

For attempt to commit robbery 1 

For burglary and larceny 12 

For gra nd larceny 24 

For larcen y 3 

For obtaining money under false pretense , 1 

For attem pt at bribery 1 

For oerjurv 3 

—113 
The seven short of number on register are in the thirty fe- 
male colored convicts. 

The penitentiary record shows the crimes of thirty of the 
thirty-two colored females on the register to be as follows (the 
crimes of the two short, the writer was unable to trace from the 
use in the register of initials only): 

For murder 7 

For manslaughter 3 

For assault and battery with intent to kill 2 

For poisoning I 

For poison in g fam ily 1 

For accessory to murder 1 

For arson 2 

For attem pt to com m i t arso n 1 

For burglary and laiceny 1 

For grand larceny and arson 1 

For gra nd larceny ^^ 

For incest 1 

!'( ) r b i gamy 2 

For perjury 2 

—30 



THE NEGRO. 49 

Classification of Whites: 

For murder p- 

For as.«^ault and battery with intent to kill To 

J^or manslaughter "t. 

For shooting with intent to kill... 1 

For rape ^ 

For incest ./ . 

For bigamy i 

For arson ".. ]. 

For burglary and larceny ^ 

For robbery \ ' ^ 

For burglary ....... t 

For grand larceny ^^ 

For larceny \ .'".'"".''".'"'.'".! ^ 

For forger}- .( 

For obstructing railroad ? 

For embezzlement ', 7 

Two in excess of number on register— a slight inac^racv 
of the writer or a confusion in the tables. ctccuiacy 

It i.s interesting to note the exercise of Executive clemency 
toward the colored convicts, in the pardon of forty-nine o them 
ort^hetwo years covered by the Penitentiary repoitwS 
thirty-seven whites for the same period were pardoned Th s 
serves to show impartiality on the part of the Governor in the 
exercise of this function of his office 

The f-ollowing table throws further light upon the ^ubiert 
and would If the proportions for the vearlSSsUild be ascer- 
tained, add materially to the 708 above. 
Discharges of colored convicts from Dec. 1, 1S83 to Dec 1 

18bo ■ ' 

Escaped ^^^ 

Deaths .?9 

Pardoned 1^? 

51 

\ 1 . . , '^lO 

And the total number of colored criminals would be still 




nervations to follow will, however, be confined wholly to the' 
rmW.s^ as given— to the a.^certained facts ^ 

nffhpp/-r''r'' ^'Y '^'''^^' «l'Pli'"'iti'>'^ ^<> the Superintendent 
of the Penitentiary for a statement from the register of the num- 
ber of convicts at this time (August, 1887) but can get from 
him only estimaies, which is not what he wanted, and the esti- 
mated figures are not here given, but if they are reasonably cor- 
lect It IS clear that when the probable deaths, escapes and ,.ar- 
dons are added to the estimated number of colored convicts there 



50 THE NEGRO. 

is a large increase for 1887 over 1885, going to show that'facili- 
ties for education and religious instruction are failing to stop a 
steady increase of crime amongst the race. ) 

Of the 708 colored convicts on the register 1st December, 
1885, the surprising number of 120 were Mulattoes and copper- 
colored, of mixed white and black blood and that too after leaving 
all of those marked as "brown " and " griff" to the black column. 

The writer, with the assistance of the Sheriff of Warren 
county, recently carefully examined the Vicksburg jail register 
from the 1st of March, 1886, to 28th of February, 1887, and found 
the total commitments for the year to be 446. Of these 426 
were colored and 20 were white. 

On the same day and for the same period, he as carefully 
examined the register of the Work House of Vicksburg, a 
municipal institution, in which the violaters of the city ordi- 
nances, etc., are confined, assisted by the keeper of the same, 
finding the total number of commitments to be 1416: 

White Males 399 

White Females 25 

Colored Males 681 

Colored Females 311 

1,416 

In order to a better comprehension of the significance of 
the foregoing official figures, it will be pertinent to consult the 
United States census report a little. By that report for 1880 it 
will be seen that the white inhabitants for that year numbered 
in the State of Mississippi 479,398, and the colored 650,291. 
That in the county of Warren they numbered, whites 8,717, 
colored 22,516. In the city of Vicksburg they numbered, whites 
5,975, colored 5,836. 

It is altogether probable that the numbers for the State are 
nearer together now than they were then for there is more im- 
migration to the State of whites than blacks, and probably less 
of emigration from the State of whites than blacks. So that in 
all probability the excess of colored over white is not greater 
than 100,000 at present; yet the calculations are made upon the 
basis of the census report. 

The writer will endeavor to be fair and impartial in his 
comments upon these figures. The first thing that attracts 
attention in these statistics of crime is the great numerical dis- 
parity between the races, to the discredit of the Negro. For 
instance we have in the State Penitentiary one colored convict 
for every 918 of colored ])opulation in the State and only one to 
every 4,480 white inhabitants. 

On what principle or theory is this marked difierence to be 
accounted for? Plainly on the common sense principle and 
self-evident fact that the colored pe.'ple are all of the difference 
" worser, " as they would say, than the whites. Are they con- 
stitutionally that much worse? ^\'ere they made that much 



1 HE NEGRO. r>J 

worse by slavery ? or are they made that much worse by freedom*? 
. Opinions differ on these points, and as an expression^f 
it'l^Ct'to r'' ^"-r^ '° satisfactorily sustain it is 6^ no vaku/ 
•inswer -rw 'fi ''"v"^^?, question, or give the agnostic's 
hfp?« 7 ' \ ^'T-V ^^'' •^^'^'' ho^vever, remains, specu- 

ind L f"'''^; ''^''n '^' '^'"^'"; ^"^' -^-^^ ^t "^^^V be truth ullv, 

and therefore logically, argued that the Negro is n)ade worse bv 

reedom necessarily. His natural depravity-that which is com^- 

•Ps - fnt 'r''~/r, ^^""^'y^ ''^''^ "'^^'er the immediate and daily 
estiaining aw of the master, lu freedom he is under the more 
emote and lesser (in particulars) general law of the State AVas 
themaster wiser than the State? mav be asked. That'ques- 
tion may be answered by asking another. Is the State wiser 
than the parent in the management of his children "> Who is 
prepared to say it would be wise and better to put the children 
ot the country— turn them loose— under the laws of the State 
than to keep them under the parental law of the home ? What 
would become of their morals if left to work out their own sweet 
\v 111^ with no government nearer to them than the State '? And 
trown and squirm at it as the Negro and his s^yeaa/ friends may 
wlien slavery was abolished the negro was simply a child with 
very low capacities, in every particular. Then it'is not strange 
that he ran into wild excesses as the records of our courts and 
the registers of our penitentiaries, jails and work-houses show 
and as we all know . Yes he is necesmrily worse. And after the 
^^sop^ ot the ballot was given him did not satan enter into 

The assertion is often made, by the apologists of the Negro 
that he does not get a fair trial in court. This is an impeach- 
ment ot the integrity and humanity of our judtjes which is not 
sustained by the reputations they bear, and is obnoxious to 
truth, in case of inability to pay fees an assignment of counsel 
is always made, and our courts are full of young lawyers seek- 
ing reputation, ready to volunteer their services. A<^ain it is 
often asserted that he commits crime ignorantly. That he does 
some wrong things in no bad spirit and that he is entitled to 
the benefitof the righteous ])hilos.)phy of Brother IJrown's " bles- 
sm' " on the dance in Russell's Christmas Night at the (^larters : 
"Kemember Mahsr — min' dis now— the sinfuhiess ob sin, 
Is 'penden' 'poii do sperrit what we goes and does it in."* 

That he is by nature excitable and thoughtless in his noisy and 
noisome ways and that, therefore, ho must needs be excused • 
though the General Assembly of the I'rosbyterian church at 
Omalia in ^Nlay last did solemly declare — in its report on Mis- 
sionsTor Southern Freedmen— that he is "naturally umlemiyndra- 
tive." How valuable these far away opinions about the Xe^ro ! 
iNFany of them are far away from the truth ! ^ 

Without holding him strictly to the law which ex- 
cuses no man for tiie rea.son of ignorance, it may be answered 



.V2 THE NEGRO. 



o 



that llie Clime is evidence of a depraved nature, and that he 
needs a restraining lesson. Then again, it is frequently urged 
that enlightenment— education— is the Pool of Siloam to wash 
him in and give him sight ; that it will in course of time come 
with healing in its wings to cure all of his " natural depravity. " 
But this is a specific which is condemned by the history of 
crime in all civilized countries. Startling as it may appear 
to the educational monomaniac, it is nevertheless a fact that 
the barometer of crime rises with the application of this stim- 
ulant, as is clearly attested by statistics. A challenge of this 
statement would bring out abundant proof to sustain it. 

Then is the Negro " evil and only evil " ? Oh no ! There 
is good in him, but no more than we have a right to expect. 
All of our sentimentalism, and charity, and good wishes can 
find no more than there is ! Be reconciled to the fact that he 
must " go slow " in climbing the mount of civilization, and 
that you must "go slow"' with him as his mentor. Consider 
his nature as you consider the nature of other creatures and 
things. You know voucant strike a match in water ; you can't 
train a climbing vine to grow perpendicularly downwards, and 
you search in vain for fruit on the flowering peach which ex- 
hausts its powers of production in excessive blooming. 

But to go back to our figures. It will be observed m our 
analysis and classification of the crimes of the colored convicts 
in the penitentiary, that no less than 2-29, the nine first men- 
tioned, out of the 708 total, are for the most serious crimes 
known to the criminal calendar, outside of murder in the first 
degree. Burglary 91, and burglary and larceny 27, are also 
senous crimes. It will be observed that he is ambitious in 
larcenies— gra7jd larceny 255. The lesser oflfenses sum up 9(3. 
And yet the misrepresentation that his offenses are only venial 
is often made; that pig stealing and the robbing of hen-roosts 
is the height of his ambition. Hut it will be seen by reference 
to the tables given, that "sin taking occasion by the 15th 'co7?i- 
onandment /' has wrought in him all manner of concupiscence." 
Let justice be done to our Brother in Black ! The crimeof rape 
seems to be a besetting sin with a portion of the race, in spite 
of the certain swift punishment usually following its commis- 
sion. It is probable that the o2 cases enumerated in the peni- 
tentiary report were in punishment of the crime against colored 
females. When committed against white women the case 
rarely gets into court. This crime on the part of the negro 
was comparitively or wholly unknown in slavery. The wild 
dog of the streets of Constantino])le never is afflicted with rabies ; 
it is the domesticated, the educated, the civilized dog of that 
locality only, that so suffers and inflicts misery upon other 
beings. 

It is to be hoped that no one has kept a record of all these 
dastardly outrages by the negroes, in the past ten years, not 



THE NEGRO. 53 

alone in the South, but also in the Xorth and West. Its publi- 
cation would arouse a feeling of indignation which might grow 
into unwonted proportions and lend to regretful results. Read 
the following and then imagine the etJ'ect of putting together 
all similar accounts for the past ten or twenty years: 

cornT-iioo.M tra(;edy. 

"At TnionCity, Ind., a negro named John Thomas was 
charged with a horrid crime. A posse was organized, and after 
a long search, he was found at Humboldt and brought back. 
His preliminary examination was held, and a large, angry and 
determined crowd filled the court-room. He was positively 
identified by his victim. At this point some one in the crowd 
shouted : "That's enough, feet's put him where he'll do no more 
of the devil's work." The entire court-room of men, number- 
ing perhaps two hundred enraged citizens, then rose to their 
feet, and with an impulsive rush, surged over the posse of oili- 
cers, sweeping them aside, and despite their efforts to save 
Thomas, the maddened throng seized the trembling wretch. 
In a moment a good rope was produced, and a noose, deftly jire- 
pared, sli])ped about the prisoner's neck. Willing hands 
threw the end of the rope over a beam in the court-room, and 
then the crowd walked away, leaving the body swinging." 

A TEl;i;il!LI-: CKIME — ASSAULT ON A WHITE GIRL UV N i:(; KoKS LN 

DALLAS, TEXAS. 

Dallas, Oct. 3, 1887.— About 12 o'clock last night, while 
Lon Barlow, of Forney, Texas, and ^liss -lulia Walker, who re- 
sides on Jackson street, of this city, were walking in the city 
park, they were suddenly confronted by two burly negroes, who 
thrust pistols in the faces of the two lovers, who were soon to 
be married. One of the negroes robbed Barlow of a small sum of 
money, and while doing this, the other dragged Miss Walker 
out of the park into a cedar brake, knocked her down and com- 
mitted a nameless crime upon her." 

A TKIl'LE LYNCHING — OLTRACiE ON A TEN-VEAU nl.li CHILI) — 
THREE NE(iRO BRFTES SPEEDILY nrN(; liV .V CROWD <iK WHITES 
AND BLACKS. 

An Odin, Tenn., special of Dec. 9th says : "Judge Lynch is 
a favorite tribunal in Tennessee, andone that settles most dis- 
putes that the unwritten law api)lies to. The neighboihood of 
Rives, a small town in Tennessee, was yesterday the scene of a 
tri})le lynching. Adam (Uiarles, Andy Miller and Wm. Smith 
were the victims. The cause was assault nn a ten-yeai--old 
child, the daughter of Mr. M. Meyers." 

The following supports and illustrates the argument on 
page 4o. It was not met with until after that page liad gone to 
press. 



54 THE NEGRO. 

"Scenes were enacted in Atlanta during the last days 
of the canvass (Prohibition) which brought the blush of shame 
to the cheek of every decent Southern man. A large number 
of the ladies of Atlanta — and undeniably they were ladies — 
were to be seen on the streets, walking arm in arm with negro 
women, while they rode negro men in their carriages to be 
registered, and at the polls they served hot lunch tothe negroes 
and canvassed for votes with all the effrontery and energy of 
professional ward workers. Atlanta is in the so-called New 
South. Let it be fenced in." — New Orleans States, Dec. 1. 

Could there beany stronger proof that the eduGated negro 
maybe an unmitigated fool with unparalleled effrontery, than 
is shown in the following recent telegram? 

POPULAR INDIGNATION AGAINST A COLORED EDITOR. 

Montgomery. Ala., Aug. 16. — Popular indignation against 
an article in the Herald, a weekly paper edited by a colored 
man named Jas. E. Dukes, reached a climax here yesterday. 
The article came out Saturday, and is as follows : 

"Everyday or so we read of the lynching of some negro 
for outraging some white woman. Why is it that white wo- 
men attract negro men more now than in former days. There 
was a time when such a thing was unheard of. There is a 
secret to this thing, and we greatly suspect it is the growing 
appreciation of the white Juliet for the colored Romeo as he be- 
comes more and more intelligent and refined. If something is 
not done to break up these lynchings it will be so that after a 
while they will lynch every colored man that looks at a white 
woman with a twinkle in his eye." 

A public meeting to-day adopted resolutions denouncing 
him and warning him to go away from Montgomery at the 
peril of his life. Dukes' paper has been bitterly partisan, and 
has more than once contained articles to which the whites se- 
riously objected." 

This colored editor's utterances remind one of some of the 
hellish talk we were familiar with in the days of reconstruc- 
tion. Is it coming again ? It is enough to stand the deed 
without the word. What State had the honor of educating this 
brute ? 

To the eternal disgrace of the white man seduction or 
rape was sometimes, in the days of slavery, perpetrated against 
the female slave. Are the innocentof this age suffering for the 
guilty of a past age ? It is a terrible thought and we should 
tremble at the commission of crime against the sanctity of 
human nature whether in the high l)orn or the lowly. 

The reader will observe with ;ilarm and pain, if he be a 
well wisher of the race, the large number of colored females on 
the register of the work-house at Vicksburg, ;Ul out of a total 
of 982 colored, almost one-third of the whole, while in the case 



THE NEGRO. .V) 

of the whites the females number only 25 out of a total of 424. 
If there is to be any lasting elevation of the race it mitsi begin 
with the women — the mothers of the race. A civilization, in 
this age, that leaves out the women, or that does not begin at 
them, will be stillborn. If there be no home altar for it to burn 
on its fires will never be kindled, or if they be kindled, no 
smoke of incense will go up from them to bless the race. If the 
friends of the race can't save and elevate the women of it, the 
race must perish. 

Everybody expects too much of the negro; not alone those 
who know nothing about him, who see him at a distance 
through the magnifying glasses of pity and sentamentalism, 
and have substituted, Lo ! the poor Negro! for " Lo ! the poor 
Indian !" but too much is expected of him even by those who 
have lived with him and known him all their lives, and this 
wronsc expectation often causes them to do him great injustice. 

The writer wishes to say just here once for all, that in his 
general estimate of the Nej:ro, in character, in mental capacity 
and in general worthiness, he recognizes and admits that there 
are honorable exceptions to any rule of judgment concerning 
the race, which will be inferred, from what he has said, he has 
felt forced bv facts, by statistics, by history and by observation, 
to adopt. He personally knows of some of these honorable ex- 
ceptions, and numbers them among his friends; has served 
them and been served by them, and expects to remain always 
on friendly terms with them. All nature abounds with ex- 
ceptions to ordinary rules, and these prove nothing, according 
to the adage, except the rule. They 'are to be found in the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms and in every other kingdom 
of nature, and often vex and confuse our judgment, but the 
practiced eye and mind of the naturalist will detect the rule and 
assign the exceptions to their proper places. 
^^'iBut to get back again to our figures. It will be seen stated 
that 120 of the 708 colored convicts on the penitentiary register 
1st December, 1S8-"), were mullatoes or 'copper-colored — half- 
breeds — graded stock — on our State ranch's register of unruly 
cattle! This is, perhaps, the most im])ortant to])ic in the dis- 
cussion of this race or Negro ])roblein,^owing to its far. reaching 
effects upon the two races involved in it. Is the amalgamation 
of two races, es-'^entially different in color and so essen- 
tially different in mental constitution that the one has a 
long history of civilization and the other is; abso- 
lutelv without any such history, abhorent to nature and con- 
trary to the'decreesof God ? Has the irreat .lehovah set a bound 
to i-iices — drawn a^color"line which cannot be'passed [without 
sin ? Perhaps the best answer we have to this (luestion is found 
in the physical and moral effects upon progeny in this mixing 
of races so dissimilar. As to the ])hysicai ellect, the following 
authorities, with their words, are cited: 



THE NEGRO. 

Squier, an authority on the question says : 

"Nature perpetuates no human hybrid? — as for instance, a 
permanent race of mulattoes. " — [Library of Universal Knowl- 
edge vol. 9.] 

Doctor J. C. Knott affirms : 

" That mulattoes are the shortest-lived of any class of the 
human family," and supports the assertion with the following 
remarks : 

" Almost fifty years of residence among the white and black 
races, spread in nearly equal proportions through South Caro- 
lina and Alabama, and twenty-five years of nearly incessant 
professional intercourse with both, have satisfied me of the 
absolute truth of the deduction. " — [Nott & Gliddon, Types of 
Mankind, page 373.] 

In accounting tor the exceptional longevity and prolific- 
ness of mulattoes in Mobile, New Orleans and Pensacola, the 
same author says : 

" In the Atlantic States the population is Teutonic and 
Celtic, whereas in our Gulf cities there exists a preponderence 
of the blood of French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and other 
dark skinned races. " 

lie holds that these latter belong to types of the human 
family genealogically distinct from the white skinned people 
north of Florida. He holds that these dark skinned races were 
chiefly of" Iberian origin," saying : 

" Bodischon, in his curious work on Algeria maintains 
that this Iberian or Bosque population, although of course, not 
negro, is really an African and probably a Berber family, which 
migiated across the Straits of Gibralter some two thousand 
years before the Christian era; and we might therefore regard 
them as what Dr. Morton calls a proximate race. " — [Ibid, page 
374.] 

lie argues on page 397 that when proximate species of 
mankind are bred together they produce prolific ofispring ; but 
'• when on the other hand, species the most widely separated, 
such as the Anglo Saxon with the Negro, are crossed, a different 
result has come. " — [ Ibid, 397. ] 

Again on page 379 he argues that the product of the (U'oss 
between the Anglo Saxon and Negro die off before the dark 
stain can be washed out by amalgamation. 

I conclude with tho folhnvinfr quotations on pages 405 and 
407: 

" If these remarks be true in basis it is evident theoreti- 
cally that the superior races ought to be kept free from all adul- 
terations, otherwise tlie world will retrograde instead of advance 
in civilization." "That through the operations of the law of 
liybridity alone, the human family might possibly become ex- 
terminated by a thorough amalgamation of all the various types 
of mankind. 



THE NEGRO. :>! 

Professor Druaimonci says " Inappropriate hybridism is 
checked by the law of sterility. " 

The reader is now invited to accomiiany the writer to the 
penitentiary of Mississippi to see the moral etl'ect of hybridiza- 
tion upon progeny. We see in the first place, that the mulat- 
toes actually outnumber the whites in that institution by 17, 
and that they constitute about one-sixth of the colored con- 
victs. To arrive at a just conclusion in the matter, it is now 
necessary to make an estimate of the number of mulattoes in 
the State, which is reached by a probable per centage of this 
class in the whole of the other two. (In the U. S. Census they 
are counted with the blacks.) The writer, after careful obser- 
vation and reflection, settled upon one in 30 of either of the 
other classes as the probable proportion of mulattoes. In this 
opinion he is supported by the enumerator for Warren county, 
Miss., in the census of 1880, an intelligent, educated and respect- 
able black man, who gave the same figures as the probable esti- 
mate, upon being asked, without any intimation as to the ob- 
ject of the inquiry. 

Then, if this estimate be probably correct, (the writer really 
thinks it too low, but settled on it as being certainly safe) then 
there should be of mulattoes in the State, as compared with the 
colored population, 21,676; as compared with the whites, 15,979. 
The 120 of them in the penitentiary is one out of every l8l in 
the comparison with the colored popuhition, and one out of 
every 133 as compared with the white. Then we have this as the 
showing of the penitentiary for the three classes on its register, 
Dec. 1st, 1885: one out of every 4,480 white inhabitants of the 
State; one out of every 1)18 of total colored inhabitants and one 
out of every 181 (compared with blacks) and 133 compared with 
whites) of mulattoes. These figures carry their own comment 
with them. We see where we are morally in these three classes 
by a simple glance at the figures. This is an age of figures and 
figuring, and a thing that can't be proved by figures is esteemed 
of small value. 

Had the mulattoes been as numerous on the 1st of December 
1885, as the blacks, this per centage of criminals from their 
class would have given to the penitentiary at tliat date, 3,473 
mulatto inmates ! Tiiink of this num))er as com[)ared with the 
number of Blacks (after deducting the 120 mulattoes from the 
total colored)586! To })ut the case in another form : Were the 
mulattoes no more criminally inclined than the blacks, there 
would have been but 23 Gl-lOO of them in the Penitentinr}', 
on the first of December, 1885, instead>of 120 as there wjis; if no 
more than the whites, there shonld have been but 3 54-100. 
And yet this is the road by which the Negro is to be carried to a 
higher })lane: this the use to which the white man is to devote 
his superior procreative energies ! 

It is one thing to ascertain and state a fact and another to 



58 THE NEGRO. 

account for it. Thechemist in compounding different substances 
will find and show you a resultant so palpable to your senses 
that you receive it as a truth, when he may be utterl}^ unable 
to give you the why of it. You may pass into the wide field of 
speculation with your fact, only to wander and wander with a 
lo, here! or a lo, there ! and end at last in ^rovm^nothing, yet, 
about these effects of the amalgamation of the two widely diver- 
gent races — the black and white — we may reason with some 
profit. 

There is a philosophy in all the phenomena of life, if we 
can only get at it. \Ve have here in this branch of this peni- 
tentiary report a very important jact. How is it to be ac- 
counted for? Why is it that these hybrids are worse than the 
two stocks from which they sprung? Why is it that the prog- 
eny, immediate, of the white man and the black woman should 
partake of the baser natures of both, rather than of any of 
the better that might be in either or both ? All law, whether 
it be the law of God, the law of the State, or the law of Nature, 
affixes a penalty to its violation, and the violator, conscious or 
unconscious of the violation, must suffer. These laws, with 
their attribute or penalty, are always in force, are never sui^- 
pended. It is thus only that their majesty and supreme author- 
ity are maintained. God's laws are ordained (fixed) of God ; the 
powers that be — the laws of the State — are ordained (fixed) of 
God, and the laws of Nature are ordained (fixed) of God. Law 
reigns above us, beneath us, and about us. Its endless chain 
encompasses us : we are its thrall, and bound to obej^ or suffer, 
directly or indirectly, in some one way or another. The exact 
penalty, as we see it, we may not feel, but we will feel something, 
some equivalent. It may be shame or remorse, or loss of prop- 
erty, health or friends, or a blunting of tlie moral sense and the 
letting in of the furies of hell to reign in us and over us. 

Now, then, the law of God says " Thou shalt not commit 
adultery," and the law of the State says thou shalt not commit 
adultery; and when committed with a negro in the relation of 
man and wife, the law of the State affixes a heavy penalty — im- 
prisonment in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding ten 
years. The guilty parties to the crime, whether it be open or 
secret, are outraging public sentiment and the })olicy of the 
State as expressed in its law. In the commission of this crime, 
the moral sense is blunted, the laws of (Jod and of the State are 
violated and defied. The criminal may escape the specific pun- 
ishment the law would inliict, but the great moral law must be 
vindicated — its eternal principles mzis^vork out their purposes, 
even though the iniquity of the fathers should be visited upon 
the children unto the third and fourth generations, in punish- 
ment of the offence. 

The animal propensities of the man guilty of this offence 
are alone active. The moral sense is dormant — dead — has been 



THE NEGRO 59 

crucified and sacrificed on the altar of lust. Then, what is 
transmitted to the oflspring? The inevitable natural law of her- 
edity — of like begetting like — answers the question and accounts 
for the moral obliquity and opacity of the human hybrid thus 
begotten. The logic that drives to this answer may be severe, 
but who can unknit its web? The higher law of regeneration 
in its miracle-working powei-, may come in and save the victim, 
but the lower law of heredity must work to its inevitable end. 

The remoter descendants of these hybrids often contract hon- 
orable marriage and live virtuous lives. The curse of a violated 
law is in their veins just as the curse of the transgression of 
our first parents is in the veins of all their descendants, but 
the contingent of Mercy, for the removal of the curse, is an 
inexhaustible resource. 

Another and closer view than this strictly legal one with its 
inexorable penalties, may be taken of this question. What is 
the basis of character with these human hybrids ? — what do 
they come of? On the black mother's side, a nature almost wholly 
animal by inheritance, and by environment ; a necessarily low 
nature; on the white father's side, a nature highly animalized, 
with all of the vicious })ro})ensities in full play, 
and all the more active and intensified, because 
any balancing qualities in the moral nature are wholly sup- 
pressed. What a crime it is to be instrumental in bringing re- 
sponsible human beings into existence with such chances! 

An ingenious writer, some twenty years since, framed an 
elaborate and plausible argument, founded, as he claimed, upon 
the disclosures of Scri])ture, in suj)p()rt of the theory that the 
calamity of the Hood, the confusion of tongues at the tower of 
Babel, the destruction of the cities of the Plain, and the over- 
throw of the Canaanites by the children of Israel, were judg- 
ments of the Almighty for the crime of amalgamation or mis- 
cegenation between the white descendants of Adam and lOve, 
and the Negro, whom he claims was created before Adam and 
Eve. (The curious in ethnological studies are referred for the 
above to " The Negro, by Ariel," published in Cincinnati, O , in 
1867.) 

Ariel's "beast" theory in this connection is entirely ex- 
ploded by the fact that there cannot be a propagation in an 
union between animals of separate genera, besides, all of the 
races of what we consider n)an are too nearly identical in phys- 
ical structure to be separated into dillerent classes. Besides, 
again, we know there is propagation in the union of whites and 
blacks, though scientists den}- that there can be indelinite j)er- 
petuation of their progeny. 

Disclaiming any desire to "distress Ariel," it may be said 
he could have sustained l)ettor his theory by an argumimt drawn 
from the habit of indiscriminate sexual inteicourse by a great 
majority of the race, than by strained interpretations of the 



GO THE NEGRO. 

Bible. Rev. Doctor Tucker, formerly of Jackson, Miss., whose 
speech in the Episcopal Congress at Richmond, Va., in October^ 
1882, so startled the country, says in his pamphlet, which en. 
larges on the speech : 

" In all the country districts, the removal of the restraints of 
slavery, such as they were, has resulted in an open abandon- 
ment of every semblance of morality, and the loss almost of the 
idea of marriage. Why, in one county of Mississippi, there 
w^ere during twelve months three hundred marriage licenses 
taken out in the County Clerk's office for white people. Accord- 
ing to the proportion of population, there should have been in 
the same time twelve hundred or more for negroes. There can 
be no legal marriage of any sort in Mississippi without 
a license. There were actually taken out by colored people just 
three! * * * Soon after the war, the legislature passed an 
act legalizing the union of all who were then living together, 
marrying them whether they wished or not, and for years af- 
terwards, the courts were crowded with applications for divorce 
from colored people, which had to be granted mostly, since 
there was ample cause for divorce under either the divine or 
statute law. I know of whole neighborhoods, including hun- 
dreds of negro families, where there is not one single legally 
married couple or couple not married, who stay faithful to each 
other beyond a few months or a few 3'ears at most, often but a 
few weeks. And if out ot every five hundred negro families, 
one excepts a few dozen who are legally married, this statement 
will hold true for millions of colored people. And these things 
I tell you to-night, are but hints. I cannot, I dare not tell the 
full truth before a mixed audience." 

As soon as the Doctor's speech was published the indignant 
colored people held a public meeting at Jackson to repel the 
slander. But unfortunately for the remonstrants and indig- 
nants the Doctor was afterwards endorsed by sundry Negro 
preachers, whose endorsements are published in his pamphlet, 
one of which says amongst other things, ''this speech reveals 
humiliating facts,, so truthful, yet hard to acknowledge. Not 
one of our social circles, if we can be said to have any, are clean 
morally. They are full of base, downright hypocricy and false- 
hood and full two-thirds of the whole are members of the 
churches. Moral character is not the standard. Crimes that 
should cause a blush on fair cheeks assume a front of brass, and 
defy you to speak of or talk about them. Some of them are 
school teachers. * -'' * '■" A colored man only a 
few days ago, contended with me that the Negroes were right in 
certain of their practices, because the F^ord -Jesus himself said 
that seven women should lay hold of one man. " 

Then follows the endorsement of four other Negro preachers 
who sav they " fully concur in the foregoing letter of Brother 
Isaac Williams. " And they add further : " Our acquaintance 



THE NEGRO. ()1 

extends over seven to ten thousand colored people concerning 
whose lives we know the truth ; and that truth is set forth in 
Doctor Tucker's speech without exageration. There are excej)- 
tions, but the general truth is stated exactly as it is. We agree 
also that he has only given hints as regards many things of 
such a nature that only hints were possible. '' 

So much importance is attached to Doctor Tucker's state- 
ments that some of them have been copied into the Encyclo- 
paedia Brittanica in the chapter on The Negro. 

The habits and appetites of the race all tend to the cultiva- 
tion of the animal nature in the coarsest direction. They eat 
extravagantly in this hot climate, where there is no physical 
necessity for "it, of the fattest meats which heats the blood abnor- 
mally, and they are almost herbaceous in their tastes in the 
vegetable line, preferring the coarsest of these, indulging in 
them to excess. 

No sentimental namby-pambyism about the unfortunate 
race can overcome the consequences of these j)hysical habits 
and appetites, and similar habits in the white race are just as 
efficacious in working the same result! There is no escape 
from the effects of causes, they work to their inevitable ends 
though the heavens and the earth be rent assunder. 

But be it borne in mind, however, that this is the grosser 
besetting sin of a gross people, just ascovetousness is the rehned 
besetting sin, it may be said, of the more refined whites. Yet 
they are both parts of one and the same decalogue. There the 
one is as heinous as the other. It is only man that makes the 
diiierence. (tod knows no difference. At least it cannot be dis- 
covered in the table of commandments ; the one is as much for- 
bidden as the other. 

In the light of these facts and figures touching the physi- 
cal and moral effects of amalgamation between the white and 
black races the conclusion chat it is an undesirable thing is 
readily reached ; nay more, that it is criminal to advocate it 
and promote it. Yet we find the Hon. Frederick Dougla.ss, in 
the ]N[ay, 1886, number of the North American Review; in ai)pa- 
rent dispair of the elevation of his race on the direct line, advo- 
cating it, mildly and modestly it is true, or ratiier prophesying 
it, for he says upon the subject : " I am not a propagandist but 
a prophet, "" but he adds, '• "while I would not be understood as 
advocating the desirability of such a result, I would not be un- 
derstood as deprecating it." He is clearly on tin- fence on the 
question — occupies middle ground — but a natural one for him. 
In publishing Mr. Fred Douglass' dissertation on, or proph- 
ecy of amalgamation, as he prefers to call it, the North Ameri- 
can Review has given us a " Why 1 am an Amalgamationist, " 
substantially, and having since given us a "Why 1 am a 
Heathen," and a " Why I am an Agnostic. " in effect, it only 
needs now to complete "its notoriety and usefulness to give us a 



62 THE NEGRO. 

" Why I am a Mormon. " Light on these topics may be useful 
notwithstanding the shock given to our finer sensibilities in 
the airing of them. Useful lessons may sometimes be drawn 
from the coarsest jests and from mere parodies of religion, virtue 
and philosophy. These voices o/" the night which seem never to 
fail of a welcome to the columns of the Review, reminds one of a 
bird that frequents the lower marshes and dense forests of the 
Amazon and its tributaries, amid 

" The soiitude of earth that overawes,*" 

called by the natives Alma Perdida, (lost soul) "whose wild and 
wailing cry from the depths of the forest, seem, indeed, as sad 
and despairing as that of one without hope." — [Lieutenants 
Herndon and (libbon, Exploration of the Valle}^ of the Amazon.] 
The modesty and shyness of Mr. Douglass is in striking 
contrast with the bolder utterances of some of his white brethren. 
Some of these titled modern philosophers and educators, learned 
above their fellows, being in council at Ocean Grove, New 
Jersey, August, 1883, with the S})irit of prophesy upon them, 
spake as follows : 

Said Rev. B. T. Tanner, D. D., editor Christian Recorder, 
Philadelphia : " Whether the whites and the blacks of the 
country shall mix is no longer an open question, being settled 
by the fact that the mixing has already, and to a large extent, 
taken place. " In another place he says, " As we. gaze upon the 
millions of whites and millions of blacks confronting each other 
and remembering that where there is no association there can 
be no certain amity, and where there is no amity there can be 
no lasting peace, we are made to ask what will the harvest be ? 
As there cannot be other than one government, co there must 
not be ultimately more than one people. The union of which 
we so justly boast must comprehend both. " Rev. J. W. Ham- 
ilton, People's Church, Boston, said : " All the social, intellec- 
tual and constitutional elements crept into our civilization must 
mingle into a oneness of relation, inseperable. There can be no 
distinction of right, as there must be no restriction of privil- 
eges." Comi)aring the mingling of the two races with the 
mingling of the Mississippi and Missouri, he says : " The great 
black waters have already struck the Mississippi, and there is 
butone outlet to the sea. TTolp it we won't. Hinder it we can't. 

=i= 'i- * I am telling you of what will be because of 
what must be. * * -■' Give him (the Negro) a few 
n)illions to carry around in his pocket, a clever education to 
take care of his money and position, and an election to the U. 
S. Senate from some M'estei'n or Southern State, and prophecy 
will be fulfilled at once, when ' seven women shall take hold of 
one man,' and they shall all be white women at that." 

Prof. S. ]>. Darnell, H. D., principal Cookman Institute 
Jacksonville, Fla,, said : " Plowever we may feel on the subject, 



THE NEGRO. ():i 

the stern logic of sequences will make, in the coming years, 
"Our brother in black" a misnomer, and the diverse streams of 
blood will SD mingle that our posterity shall quote again, "(iod 
hath made of one blood all nations of men," etc. 

The logic of all these utterances is miscegenation, " no re- 
striction of privileges," etc. Are not these further incentives 
to the commission of certain nameless crimes which have been 
committed or attempted so frequently in different sections of 
the country by lustful and beastly blacks? They are Ihittering 
to the vanity of the race so suddenly lifted from the "awful 
depths," and what good these proHnind thinkers — these D. 1) s, 
A. B.s. B. D.s, L. L. D.s, and H. .M.s promise the country by 
their promulgation is a mystery. Is not mischief-making, 
harm to both races their true mission ? 

Chief Justice Taney, of the United States Supreme Court, 
speaking for the majority of the Court, said of the negroes in 
the Dred Scott decision, " they had for more than a century 
been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether 
unfit to associate with the white race either in social or politi- 
cal relations. " Mr. Lincoln said, in his speech in reply to 
Senator Douglas in 1857, "there is a natural disgust in the 
minds of nearly all white people at the idea of an indiscrimi- 
nate amalgamation of the white and black races. " 

Mr. Lincoln said again : " There is a physical difference 
between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever 
forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect e(iuality, 
and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a 
difference, I, as well as .Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race 
to which I belong having the superior position =•= =■' * '■'''■ =•= 
I agree with Judge Douglass, he is not my equal in many re- 
spects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intel- 
lectual endownents." (Lincoln and Douglas debates in Century 
for July 1887.) "It is certainly a powerful presumption against 
any opinion that it traverses universal conviction. "" 

Did these great men familiar with the subject, rei)resent 
truly, or did they misrepresent the public opinion of that day ? 
Dr has the instinct of " nearly all white peo])le " so changed 
that the "disgust" at the idea of amalgamation is not now 
" natural ?" Or has the conduct of the negro since he l)ecame a 
"free agent" been such as to show that the judginent of the 
fathers concerning him was wrong? Or do these distinguished 
historians of the North, quoted above, stand alone in the glory 
of their discovery and predilections ? We pause for the answer ! 
Is the Almanac right in saying "everybody is wiser than any- 
body ''? If it is, then we must part company with these " i)ro- 
phetic souls " 

It may be well, however, before dismissing these minor 
prophets of New England, to jmint out the probable source of 
their inspiration and philosophy. The major proi.hct, l^nimer- 



64: THE NEGRO. 

son, is credited with having said "the best nations are those 
most widely related," The logic of this utterance to the New 
Engla nd disciples of Emmerson, is, the American or Anglo 
Saxon , and the African are the two most widely related nations. 
If they be the two he^t, b}^ mixing them we get something 
better Wnxn the best. There is no limit to the wisdom of these 
Concord philosophers. Who but they could workout the above 
proposition, or give the following true definition of teleology 
"the third phrase of the inorganic jDointing towards life as its 
presupposition. " 

Emmerson swings away from the great truths of Chris- 
tianity. It is not therefore strange that his philosoph}^ should 
be faulty. In making a saint of John Brown he said he 
" would make the gallows glorious like the cross" Does this 
account for so many negroes committing the nameless crime? — 
They are but glorifying the gallows. 

The South is hungering and thirsting for some of the wis- 
dom of the North on the Negro question, and not for this gush 
and slush of her male cranks, and the insane utterances of 
her hysterical females, after the manner of the following : 

" I read in a late issue of Zion's Herald, a letter from one 
of these teachers, who declined, on the conductor's request, to 
leave the car in which she was riding, and which was set apart 
exclusively for Negroes. The conductor therefore presumed she 
was a quadroon, and stated his presumption in answer to an in- 
quiry of a young negro man who was with her. She says of 
this: 'Truly, a glad thrill went through my heart — a thrill of 
pride. This great autocrat had pronounced me as not only in 
sympathy, but also one in blood, with the truest, tenderest, and 
noblest race that dwells on earth.' " — From Mr. Gradv's reply to 
G. W. Cable in Century for April, 1885. 

This highly volatilized female has found the Negro to be all 
that Liebnitz found in a recent monad — "a mirror of the total 
beauty of the universe." It was probably a bad case of negro- 
phobia resulting from the blue-gum bite, hereafter to be noticed. 

It has been said by a judicious A-riter, that no people is fit 
for civilization or can be called civilized, that can't hold an or- 
derly town meeting. Judged by this rule, the Negro has not 
reached the point of civilization. His pow-wows are notori- 
ously disorderly; the}^ are scenes of confusion worse confounded. 
Their best hold in a jniblic meeting is " pints " of ordei-; and 
when they come togetlier. every one of them " hath an inter- 
pretation; hath a psalm," and he is never satisfied until he is 
allowed to sing it. They are interminable talkers, in their 
way, and like Private John Allen, Congressman from INIissis- 
sipi)i, " never stop for anything hut applause." They are not 
unlike the descri])ti()n by a voluble witness concerning the 
courage of a man on trial in court on a charge of assault and 
battery. The witness said in answer to a question by the attor- 



THE NEGRO. (i.-, 

ney as to the courage of the accused : " He is a little slow in the 
matter of personal adjustment, but he is very vivid on the 
verbal exercise." 

A few words about the education of the colored people, and 
we are done with this branch of the subject. Their advantages 
in this line are far greater than those of" any other people when 
the little they contributed to its cost is taken into considera- 
tion. They are being educated almost wholly at public ex- 
pense, and considering their numbers the burden is a heavy 
one upon those who bear it. The advantage is offered free of 
cost to the whole race in the U. S., numbering now not less than 
seven millions. Our fatliors, who found it so dillicnlt to educate 
themselves and their children, could hardly have dreamed that 
the day would come when their descendants would be educating 
themselves and another race double their own num- 
bers, \yhen they founded the government. The South- 
ern white people are to-day virtually providing for the educa- 
tion of seven millions of dependent orphans. They are spend- 
ing on themselves for this purpose about ^qsqw millions dollars 
per annum, and on these orphans about seven millions, (if the 
estimates we have seen are reliable) at public schools alone. 
And this they are doing in their comparative poverty — "of their 
penury." If they wronged the negro in the day of their power 
and wealth, they are voluntarily making restitution in the day of 
their poverty and lessened power — if education be the blessing 
it is claimed to be. Education blesses only those who choose to 
be blessed by it. It does not distil goodness and fructify like 
the dew and the rain, wherever they fall. There is no sover- 
eignty about it to over-rule the freedom of the will. It confers 
good only when it falls upon " good ground." 

A pertinent question : Have the educational advantages of 
the Negro in the past twenty years made him hp.tter — not wiser 
— on the whole? Letthe gallowsand the swinging limb, (Judge 
Jvynch's symbol of authority) and the penitentiary, and the jail 
and the workhouse, and the records of our courts, high and low, 

answer ; and let him who reads the papers, who is familiar with 
our criminal statistics, who goes about our Court rooms and 
Mayors' oflices, hold uj) his right hand, and answer. 

That they are acquiring knowledge in our schools and col- 
leges, is not to be questioned. Will it be a permanent lodg- 
ment and have a growth in the generations to come? 'I'hey 
are in their infancy as learners, and knowledge grows slowly 
with races. Science, and philosophy and metaphysics will per- 
plex them, and wild vagaries possess their minds, for so it has 
been with their betters. Less than four hundred years ago, the 
ancestorsof the cultured and " liigh thinking " people of New 
England and of the best of people in the South were gravely 



66 THE NEGRO. 

debating at one:of the seats of learning in England the question 
of how many angels could stand on the point of a needle ! 

This may seem to be a cold and unsympathetic treatment 
of this vexed question, but;it is better that it should come from 
a cool mind than a heated imagination. 



PART' THIRD 



AS HE WILL BE. 



Is the Negro here to stay? — Is he an Ideal American? — 
Was Negro Suffrage intended as a punishment of the South ? — 
Its failure as such. — The Solid South. — Its Evils. — The liallot 
in the Negro's hand not Res])ected. — Tlis Rights under the 
Law. — Injustice to him. — President Cleveland's Recognition ot 
his Claims. — The Blessings and Curses of Slavery. — Syphilis 
and Yellow Fever effects on the Race. — Are the}' insusceptible 
to Hydrophobia and mania-a-potu? — The Negro the Lost 10 
Tribes of Israel. — This Remarkable Discovery by a ^lississippi 
Planter — The Blue Gum Poison. — Death Rate and Birth Rate 
Statistics — Effects of Scrofula and Syphilis. — The Curse and 
Crime of Miscegenation. — Southern Libertines. — Long-ear'd 
Africans. — The Atlanta Constitution and a South Carolina Cor- 
respondent. — Is the Negro satisfied with his present Position, 
Social and Political. — Friction between the Races. — Fire the 
Result. — Causes of Friction^ Stated. — The Alternatives Pre- 
sented. — Social Equality and Amalgamation or Separation of 
the Races. — The First not to be Thought of. — The Second the 
only Solution. — Th e Negro's chances in_ a War of Races. — The 
Negro a failure Industrially — The South a White Man's 
Country. — To be his Possession Forever. — Permanent Home of 
the Puritan, the Cavalier, the Huguenot, the Scotch and the 
Scotch Irish. — A new Country for the Negro. — The Greatest 
Crime of the 19th Century. — Save the Children from the Errors 
of the Fathers. — The Nation's attitude on the (Question illogi- 
cal. — The Civil Rights Bill. — Area Peoples' Prejudices to be 
Respected? — Conclusion: "The Missing Link," in Rev. Dr. 
Strong's Great Work, "( )ur Country." — The Southern People 
ere long the Negro's only Friend. — The Republic of r>iberia. — 
A Paradise for the Negro in the (iulf of Mexico. 



'' Often by some winged ivord, winged as the thunderboldt is, of a 
Luther, a Napoleon, a Gosthe, shall toe see the difficulty split asunder 
and the secret laid bare^ivhile the irrefragible icith all his logical tools 
Jiews at it and hovers round it, and pnds it on all hands'Joo hard for 
him,^^ — Carlisle. 



68 THE NEGRO. 

The writer hereof is only " hewing at it," but the outraged 
civilization of the 19th century is calling aloud for the Luther, 
the Napoleon, the Goethe, with the winged word, to split the 
difficulty asunder. 

Having seen the Negro as he is, or as he has been since 
his enfranchisement, we come now .to take a less near view of 
him — to consider him as he will be — to treat of his future. 
The writer admits that he is now entering a wide field of spec- 
ulation, not however entirely without chart or compass, for 
there are some premises to reason from out of which the future 
naturally grows, carrying the investigator to the right conclu- 
sion as unerringly as the compass carries the mariner to his 
" desired haven." The prescience necessary to the uplifting 
of the vail that hides the mysteries of the future is not given to 
man in his fallen state. Yet man has faculties which enable 
him to follow the line leading from cause to effect with much 
of that confidence of the blind man who follows the string 
which guides him from post to post in his promenade for 
exercise. 

The great questions before the American people (if not now 
yet in the near future,) concerning the Negro, are, is he here 
TO STAY, and on what conditions? or will he in the very nature 
of things, under the inexorable logic of events, be compelled to 
MOVE ON? Is he destined to be permanently a component part 
of this great Republic? to be fused into the mass of what we 
know in the United States as the American people ? 

We have seen in Part First that there is an Ideal American 
founded upon the homogeneity and assimilating qualities of 
the people who laid the foundation of and built up our sys- 
tem ; that until the infusion into the system of the Negro ele- 
ment, it was composed wholly oi the Aryan stock, flowing from 
the several nationalities of Europe. That the oneness of these 
people in their origin, (diverse as they were in nationalties,) in 
their mental training, in their historical prestige, and in their 
religion, fitted them for the task of founding on the shores of the 
New World a great State whose power should be felt among all 
nations, and whose institutions should bless the whole human 
family. Negro Suffrage has shattered this ideal, has broken 
the unity. Strange fires are burning upon her pure altars; 
the hand of sacrilege and of the iconoclast have been stretched 
forth to defile her temple and mar her images. The unnatural 
work of intermingling light and darkness has been done. Who 
shall be surprised if there be evolved from these opposing cur- 
rents the desolating tempest? There has been an unequal 
yoking ; a yoking forbidden of reason, forbidden of instinct, 
forbidden of Heaven! 

It must be admitted that this is an incongruous element in 
our political system- -a parasitic or fungus growth engrafted 
ui)on the body-politic, whose office it is to corrupt, to damage 



THE NEGRO. 69 

and to H^^ eventually, if left to work to its end. A scientist 
says " parasitism is one of the gravest crimes in nature." 

We cannot ignore without damage, the eternal fitness of 
things. There must he acorres})ondence of qualities in a union 
in order to happy results. The Republic of Rome, with its wise 
laws and patriotic citizens, in the days of her homogeneous 
poi)ulation, might have survived for many centuries but tor the 
incorporation into her system of incongruous foreign elements. 
Corruption came of the mistake and the Republic fell. 

Caste is an obnoxious thing to republican institutions, in 
all places outside of the private home, social equality, in a re- 
public, is the legitimate fruit of jiolitical equality. The latter 
is the greater and the greater includes the less. Laws may be 
passed by States drawing the line — making a distinction — but 
such laws are clearly inconsistent with our institutions, with 
political equality of rights and privileges. The introduction 
of this foreign and obnoxious element into our political system 
has led to this violationof acardinal princi[)le of Republicanism. 
Was it wise polic}' on the part of our government to introduce 
an element into our system which made this a necessity? Call 
it a prejudice if you will, but is it wise— is it right — for a gov- 
ernment to disregard even a deep seated prejudice existing in 
the mind of a large part of her constituency? and that too a 
part of the original constituency that made the government, 
that helped to conquer her independence, and to fight the bat- 
tles of her foreign wars since. And it will not be denied by 
candid people in other portions of the Union than the South, 
that the}' themselves entertain this prejudice, made milder 
than in the South only by reason of the lesser contact. The 
Xorthern born and educated people now in the South are at 
one with the native Southerner in this matter, and were the re- 
lation of the races otherwise than they are thev would 
quit the country. 

If the policy of Negro Suffrage was dictated by a malevo- 
lent spirit; was intended as a punishment for the rebellion, 
(so-called) it has proved a failure in the punishment line, 
finally. It made a Solid South and a Solid South made a Dem- 
ocratic Administration possible. The voice of the South is as 
potent now in public affairs, in the councils of the General 
Government, as the voice of the North. The chickens have 
come home to roost : "The engineer is hoist of his own pe- 
tard." And the Solid South has come to stay so long as the 
supremacy of the white race in her domestic concerns may be 
imperiled. A continuous only one political party is, however, 
against the genius of our institutions: is an unwholesome state 
of public affiiirs. It has acorrupting tendency and the South 
sees it and feels it in its evil inlhiences. Rut she is siiut up by 
her invironments to a choice of evils, and she chooses this jis 
the least. She is not responsible for the situation. Circumstan- 



70 THE NEGRO. 

ces have forced it upon her. The responsibility lies at the 
door of Congress, of the General Government, which planted the 
dragon's teeth in the 15th amendment to the Constitution. 

The White South cannot afford to divide while the Xegro 
is a factor in politics, however great might be the public neces- 
sity for it, and however wide might be the differences of her 
people on questions' of national politics. This is deplorable 
but is a necessity of the situation. It is deplorable because 
there are questions of grave diff"erence amongst her people. 
It will be sufficient to name the tariff" as one of the questions 
on which they differ ( others might be named ) and it would be 
better for themselves, and for the whole country, that they 
could be free to give full expression to their political senti- 
ments. Again it is deplorable because the inevitable tendenc}' 
of continuous rale by a single party is to corruption. No free 
people can safely trust their destiny to such rule. Under such 
circumstances bad and unscrupulous men will get control of 
affairs. They push themselves forward while ihe virtuous citi- 
zen stands back. They make the nominations and offer you 
the alternative of ^Ats and the white man's rule, or that and 
negro rule. And this question they know overrides all other 
questions. And it should, because there is nothing worse than 
we had under their rule, while under white rule we may con- 
tinue to have something better. It is said that this incubus — 
this frightful nightmare — should force us to shut our eyes to 
the truths uttered by Jefferson when he said our institutions 
were founded in jealousy and distrust and not in confidence. 

Who respects the ballot in the hands of the Negro? He 
does not respect it himself, and everybody else knows his un- 
fitness for its use. When not a purchasable commodity, it is 
used without judgment. Discretion at the hands of the pro- 
foundly ignorant is not to be expected. It is no palliation of 
the offense to be told that some white men are no better. Why 
increase an evil — make it fourfold when it is only single? And 
it should not be forgotten that the ballot is the birthright of the 
native born white man; that his higher surroundings and re- 
sponsibilities make it a more sacred thing with him than with 
the Negro, and he has an identity which the Negro has not, 
making the crime of bribery a more serious one to him than to 
the Xegro. We might follow the leadings of this subject into 
its sickening and degrading details and show how the white 
man's hands are besmirched by it in his complicity with it : 
how that by it the tone of ])ublic morals is lowered ; how that 
by it our politicians are often compromised, and finally, how 
that by it our boasted New South is become a travesty of the 
purer and better Old South. And the " fixing " of these corrupt 
Negroes unfortunately brings the lower element of our white 
.society into jircjniinence and positions of iniluence, as it is only 
to their '"fine Italian hands" that these delicate manipulations 



THE NEGRO. 71 

and tricks of legerdemain are adapted and committed. And 
from these small beginnings in the fine art of political manage- 
ment, they grow into ringmasters and leaders of our conven- 
tions, taking the aflairs of State out of the control of the better 
element and consigning them to the hands of mere tricksters, 
and thus hazarding the raising up, supporting and keeping in 
power a class incapable of rising to the dignity of statesman- 
ship, and uu worthy to rule in our State and local affairs. 

Since the Xegro became a constituent the truth has rarely 
been si>oken to him by our politicians. They cajole and Hatter 
him to gain his vote. How can politicians with such a con- 
stituency ever grow into statesmen ? Ever since his name be- 
gan to appear in the writ of venire facias, and he became the 
"peer" of any man in the jury box, our lawyers have made it a 
study to appeal to other faculties than those of reason, of con- 
science, and of that high sense of honor to which they were bred. 
How shall lawyers who are driven thus by force of circumstan- 
ces to dwarf their intellects and repress the higher aspirations 
of the soul ever to grow into great jurists? And for all of this 
the Negro is not to be blamed. He did not make himself a voter 
or a juror? The white man made him a voter, and the law 
makes him a juror and compels him to serve as such. If he 
have unfitness for such privilege and for such service, it is not 
his fault. It is the fault of his natural incompetency or of the 
circumstances which have surrounded him. And if he is a 
source of weakness and degradation to us it is because we have 
chosen, through the loth Amendment to the Constitution and 
obedience to its behests, to make him such. Shall we follow 
the Scriptures and "bestow more honor upon our uncomely 
parts. " Religion in its province may, but Caisar can't afford 
it — or should we make a ••schism in the body. " It is better to 
make a schism, of the body, or an excision of the uncomely 
parts, than to deny such parts their privileges under the law. 
Who shall deny to the Negro his right to vote; to a seat in 
Congress; or the U. S. Senate, or the Chief Justiceship of the 
Supreme Court, or a portfolio in one or all of the Executive 
Departments? or the Presidency itself? lender the Law all of 
these positions are as much his as anybody else's. He has a 
million or more votes and he is as much entitled to these places 
as any other million or more of voters. Is the country prepared 
to accord him these places if he can win them? If it is not 
then it would deny him his just rights. If he is one-seventh 
or one-eighth of trie vote of the whole, why not give him at 
least every seventh or eighth of all the positions ? Surely if in 
his class enough men cannot be found (jualified to hold one- 
seventh of our offices then the implication foUovv.s that it was 
wrong to make him a voter. Has any party or any President 
since the Negro became a voter done him justice under the prin- 
ciple of a fair division of offices according to numbers and voting 



I ^ 



2 THE NEGRO, 



strength ? The carpet-bagger always did him great injustice in 
this matter of office. He wanted to gobble up all the offices and 
leave the Negro severely alone — to do the voting only. 

Has any Republican administration done him justice in the 
matter of office ? It is clear that he has been treated with base 
ingratitude and inhospitality in the house of his friends. They 
claimed that he belonged to them body and breeches and he has 
steadily voted with them (after first helping them to conquer 
the rebels !} Yet they have as steadily denied him his fair 
share of offices. President Cleveland, though not of his politi- 
cal household of faith, but rather a heretic, has come nearer 
doing the Negro justice, considering the infinitismal vote given 
for him by the Negro, than anybody else. In fact has heaped 
justice upon him in giving him about one office for about every 
one vote given. Every Negro should vote for JNIr. Cleveland at 
the next election and secure an office to each voter ! 

It is interesting to note how speedily the capital of the 
United States is being Africanized. A little over one-third of 
the population of the District of Columbia was colored in 1880. 
The census report for 1880 gives the following as the growth in 
the District of that class from 1860 to 1880 : 

1860 1870 1880 



14,316 43,404 59,506 

According to population and voting strength, on a fair 
division of offices, they are entitled to one-third of those con- 
ferred by the authorities of the District. The right to vote car- 
ries with it the right to hold office and should not be "abridged 
on account of race, color or previous condition. " At the rate 
of increase from 1870 to 1880 another decade should give them 
the majority and make it easy for Mr. Cleveland to find colored 
office holders right at his door. The Negroes" are likely to do 
what the British did and what the rebels, so called, failed to do 
— that is, to take the Capitol. 

The curses and blessings of African slavery on this conti- 
nent have been strangely intermingled. We say blessings be- 
cause these have come of it and are undeniable by the candid, 
thoughtful and intelligent observer— blessings to both races, the 
white and the black. But the curses, contrary to the blessings, 
have come more to the whites than to the blacks. The curse of 
strife amongst the whites about the institution, followed by the 
greater curse of war between the whites, and its fruits, negro 
suffrage; thecurse of disease, for it is insisted by many persons 
that the great scourge of the tro])ics and the tem]->erate zone, 
yellow fever, is of African origin; and it is also a popular belief 
concurrent with this, that the loathsome disease of Syphilis, 
which alllicts all latitudes and is said to be the basis of pulmon- 
ary ail'ections, is. in this country, also of African origin ; having 
come lirst in African slave ships to the West Indies and been 



THE NEGRO. 73 

carried thence to Spain, whence it was then brought back to 
America. These are current or popular opinions and may not 
have a sufficient basis of historical support. They are stated 
here only for what they are worth. If they are to be credited it 
will be agreed that the Negro has brought' us two ugly diseases. 
The fact that the Negro suffers in a far less degree, in 
malignancy, in these two forms of disease, than the white man 
goes to support the theory of marked physiological differances 
between the races. Certainly this marked and well known dif- 
ference of malignity ot type in these two blood poisons upon the 
two races, goes to prove that all mankind are not of one quality 
of blood. 

A high medical authority, (Van-Buren) says: "The ac- 
quisition of Syphilis by one race of people from another, is be- 
lieved to produce a severe type of disease." And if tliis be true 
of Syphilis is it not likely true of yellow fever, and if true of both 
or either, does not the fact go to support the idea that we get 
the two diseases from the African? Another reflection growing 
out of the "belief," as stated by Prof. Van Buren, is, that any- 
thing evil transmitted to, or mingled with, the blood of the 
white race, from the black race, is intensified in undergoing the 
transfusion ; and may not this account for the physical and 
moral degeneracy of the hybrid mulatto, as insisted upon by 
scientists in the one, and as substantiated by statistics in the 
other ? 

And the believed or suspected insusceptibility of the Negro 
to hydrophobia (another blood poison) is another proof of dif- 
ference in quality of blood. Perhaps this latter fact accounts 
for the Negro's proverbial fondness for the " yarler dog"— the 
" cur of low degree ! " The instinct of safety begets confidence 
and familiarity. 

Dr. Beall, a practitioner of medicine in Warren county, 
Mississippi, for thirty years, says he has never known or heard 
of a case of hydrophobia amongst Negroes; that he knew of 
two of them having been bitten by a rabid dog, many years ago 
and that nothing serious resulted in eitliercase ; that no symp- 
toms of the disease were developed. The writer has made in- 
quiry of many persons for a case ever known or heard of, with- 
out an affirmative answer. 

The gums of some of the Negro race secrete a poison wliich 
makes a bite from one of these almost as dangerous as the bite 
of a rabid dog. See the following : 

r5P:\VARE OK I'.LUK (JUMs! 

Policeman W. J. Yorke, of Mobile, while arresting a negro, 
recently was bitten in the hand by the negro, and the hand 
became greatly inflamed and swollen. In February last Police- 
man King wasbitten in a similar manner by a negro wiioin he 
had under arrest In two days King's hand swelled, 
and then the inflammation attacked his arms and 



74 THE NEGRO. 

legs, and for two weeks his life was in danger. Since then 
he has been slowly recovering, but is not yet able to put his 
right font on the ground. The negroes and some whites de- 
clared that the negro had blue gums, and that only those with 
blue gums have poisonous bites. This belief is generally held 
and the colored people have, it seems, this aphorism : " Don't 
fight with a blue-gummed coon." Much interest was taken in 
King's case and as soon as Yorke was bitten, an examination 
of the negro was made, and it wasdiscovered that his gums are 
of a decided blue color. In both cases of biting, the negroes 
were very deeply enraged." — New York Sun. 

A Vicksburg physician of high standing, has told the wri- 
ter of a case of blue-gum poisoning, as he is satisfied it was, 
since seeing the foregoing, in an insignificant bite of the finger 
of a copper-colored negro by a black negro, causing the whole 
arm to swell enormously; and threatening at one time to in- 
volve the whole body, but he was able to arrest it. He says the 
negro has a great horror of a bite from one of his own race. Per- 
haps an instinct. 

Another remarkable thing about the Negro is his compar- 
tive if not total exemption trom that worst effect of alcoholism, 
viania-n-2-)otu. There must be a reason for this. It must lie in 
his coarser nervous organization. It is well-known that in the 
most highly-civilized nations, the nervous temperament pre- 
dominates, and it is in those nations that the alcohol habit has 
its most victims and most serious results. This seems to be 
one of the perils of a high state of civilization. 

It is surprising how much we are finding out about the ne- 
gro. Gen. Wm. U. Miles, of Mississippi, is credited with hav- 
ing discovered that he is the lost ten tribes ot Israel — because 
he won't work on Saturday I 

The following figures, compiled by that valuable journal, 
the Sanitarian, throws much useful light upon this subject. 
They serve to show, in the mortality from consumption, and 
its (congener, scrofula, both generally attributed to taint of 
blood from syphilitic affections, near or remote, the criminality 
of mixing the races; and that the expectation of some persons 
that the negro will die out is a vain one. It is to be regretted 
that the writer did not give the statistics of insanity in the 
race. It is known that a very large increase in this direction 
has occurred since the days of slavery : 

"Squalid dwellings in filthy neighborhoods, impure air. 
dirty water, neglect of personal cleanliness, bad and insufficient 
food, and gregarious and generally unsavory habits, have united 
to produce a mortality which, as resulting from consumption 
and })neumonia alone, shows thus for (say) the four cities of 
Charleston, Memphis, .Savannah and ihashville: For the years 
1S82-1885, consumption in Charleston carried off 830 colored 
and 244 white; in .Memphis, 471 colored and Wl'l white; in 



THE NEGRO, 75 

Savannah, 391 colored and 212 white; and in Xasliville, 330 
colored and 2:>2 white. From scrofula, 3 to 7 times as many 
colored as white succumb in a given period. The prevalence 
of that disease to such an extent among the colored folks is due 
to two causes — immorality and extensive meat consumption 
without vegetable diet to match. 

The death-rate per l,UOUof the pupulation under live years 
of age for the year lo83 in the same cities named above was as 
follows : In Charleston, white 5.88, colored, 21.03 ; in Memphis, 
white, 3. To, colored, 13.i)l ; in Xasliville, white, 5.05, colored, 
12.44; and in Savannah, white, 7511, colored, 18.01. In 
the year 1885, the showing was very much the same, thus: 
In Charleston, white infants 4.45, colored, 14.38 ; in Mem))his, 
white, 4.07, colored, 13.40; in XashviUe, white, 4.37, colored, 
10.78; and in Savannah, white, 4.23, colored, 13.70. 

The excess of mortality among the colored folk is more 
than counterbalanced by the excess of the births among them ; 
and the preservation and numerical increase of the race may 
therefore be counted upon beyond the shadow of doubt. The 
j)ercentage of increase for the total population from 187(» to 
1880 was 30.08— white 29.30, black 34.07. - To show the rel- 
ative increase," says Doctor J. W. Thorntun, of Memphis, "be- 
tween the two races in the South, I take from the last olhcial 
census, the three Southern States — Tennessee, Alabama and 
Mississippi, — which may be accepted as a fair criterion for the 
rest of the South. Rate of increase, in these, taken as one 
State— white, 23.90; black, 33 per cent. It is still more appar- 
ent in South Carolina, because it is less affected by immigra- 
tion from other States, and shows more accurately the natural 
increase. There it is 45.33 for the blacks, and for the white pop- 
ulation 35 per cent. 

To come nearer home, the City physician of Xieksburg, 
Dr. H. B. Brisbane, has kindly furnished the writer with the 
following report of the mortality within the city limits for the 
year ending Dec. 31, 1880: 

Of whites — deaths from various causes 109 

Of colored— " " " " 



2.< 



Total -1-^^i 

Of which. 

Deaths from consu m ption — w h i tes 23 

" scrofula. " 1 

" syphilis, '• (* 



u 
(( 



Total 24 

Or 2.82 in every 1,000 of population. 



76 THE NEGRO. 

Deaths from consumption — colored 39 

" scrofula, " 4 

" syphilis, " 2 






Total 45 

Or 6 in every 1,000 of population. 

Population, estimated, whites 8,500 

" " colored 7,500 

These statistics furnish their own comment. Not a word 
additional is necessary. 

The following statistics in this same connection, furnished 
by the attending physician at the State and city hospital, 
Vicksburg, for October, 1887, are of a character to arrest atten- 
tion. It is proper to say that this month was not selected but 
was taken at random, without examination as to the other 
months of the year : 

Whole number of patients treated for the month 170 

Whites 115 

Colored 55 

170 

For syphilis, whites 6 

" " colored 16 

22 

Or 29 per cent, of the whole number of colored patients, and 51-5 

per cent, out of the whole number of white patients, were 

treated for this form of disease. 

There are adults now living who will see the negro popu- 
lation of the country, if they remain here, rise to 25,000,000 at 
the present rate of increase with all of their physical and men- 
tal infirmities transmitted, and they will be mostly crowded 
within the limits of ten States. No prophet is needed to tell 
what will be the condition of those States in that day. Noth- 
ing short of the spirit which will reign in the hearts of men 
when the days of the millennium shall come, will be"able to 
prevent a conflict of the two races, with diieful consequences. 
And it may be truthfully said, that at this day, neither race 
is very diligently cultivating that spirit, and without a 
change of heart the ])eriod never will arrive, if they are to 
bring it. 

But the greater curse coming to the country from the 
Negro and diligently sought to be inllicted upon it, is misceg- 
enation, or miscegeneration, as Webster says it should be called. 
And this is the sum of all the villianies ! We shall see prob- 
ably in the nervous language of Henry George in another con- 
nection that ■' our boasted civilization 'is breeding forces for its 
own destruction," and the writer feeis, to use thej language of 
still another forcible writer, that, in this matter, "to tell the 



THE NEGRO. 77 

truth even when it is unwelcome, with severe and startling 
plainness, is a noble and needed task." 

This crime against Heaven, against the State against our 
noble womanhood, against civilization, against the great Aryan 
race, and against the Negro race too, as committed secretly 
or openly by the wretch that calls himself a Southern white 
man, is crying out for the curse of Heaven and the righteous 
indignation and execration of every decent white man and 
woman in the land. Shame and everlasting confusion of face 
to the degraded libertine who so far forgets his manhood, the 
glory of his country, the purity of his race, the happiness and 
purity of his family, the peace and respect due to the mother 
that gave him birth, and to the sisters whom he should cherisli 
and seek to exalt, as to deliberately abandon his own race and 
choose habitual intercourse, in wedlock, or out of it, with those 
who if not cursed of God with an unalterable inferiority, have 
from time immemorial borne the curse of man as such. Were 
he alone involved; were there not others to be dragged down in 
his shame, the mantle of forgetfulness might be thrown over 
him and he be left to rot in his infamy, with no kinsman or 
other to touch his leprous hand. Were there not a progeny to 
issue of his lust, with good chances for a life of crime, of shame 
and misery and physical infirmities, he might be turned out 
without a word abo\it him or a thought of him, to wander alone 
with the mark of Cain set upon his brow. 

It is a great crime to disturb the order of things as decreed 
of Heaven, concerning man. God has divided the human fam- 
ily into three grand divisions— the white, the yellow and the 
black— has drawn the color line over the face of the globe with 
marked distinctness, and has substantially set a bound to their 
habitations. He has respect to " race " and "color " though the 
15th amendment to the Constitution of the United States has 
not, and He will send war, pestilence and famine upon those 
nations who in their "free agency " would fight against His 
decrees, if it be necessary in maintaining the integrity of His 
purposes. He alone understands the combinations of the 
Universe. He has " set the solitary in families," and has set 
the solitary in the universal family of man too— has made the 
great White race— the " noble " Aryan stock— tbe head of 
Nations and through that stock, as instruments in His hands, 
will come the " new heavens and the new eartb, wherein dwell- 
eth righteousness," if the past and the present be prophetic of 
the future. He has a place and a use for the black race as well, 
and these plans are not to be thwarthed by mesoegenators. 
And may we not cherish the hope and the belief that the mer- 
ciful Father of all will in His own time and in His own way, 
lift even these "feeble ones," His own children, to a higher and 
better life; and may we not indulge the tliought that this 
Great Republic, with its Christian people is to be the lustru- 



7f^ THE NEGRO. 

ment of some rational plan by which the end is to be reached. 

Moreover He made the one man and the one woman for 
each other, to dwell together in the garden of Eden, and though 
after the fall He sufiered it to be otherwise for the hardness of 
their hearts, yet through all the ages the order of Eden has 
been' preserved — the one man for the one woman in all nations, 
the sexes being sufhciently nearly balanced to carry out the 
design in FAen ; and this order has been kept up in all the 
nations of which the races are composed. What are the indi- 
cations of Providence here ? Manifestly that they should pair 
of their tribes or nationalties accordm</ to race. Abundant pro- 
vision is made in every division and subdivision of the human 
family in each of the races to meet the call of nature and to 
obey the command to " multiply and replenish the earth." 

Now, what are the consequences of a violation of this pal- 
pable decree of Heaven by one of the two sexes? Plainly and 
palpably, since the demand of nature cannot be met by the 
other sex. a similar violation on their part. Are our women 
too pure for this? Yes, thank (iod they are now, but how long 
will they continue wholly so under the persistent violation of 
the decree on the part of the other sex ? 

Is this to be the end of that which our white libertines have 
made the beginning? Would they yield their fair sisters to 
the embrace of the lustful black ? If not, then let them beware 
of their own lusts. 

A case of miscegenation in Georgia recently has found a 
.Tudge and a jury to set the seal of their disapproval upon the 
infamy as the following shows: 

'•Atlanta. Sept. 16. — [ Special.] — The City Court room pre- 
sented a sensational scene this morning. For several days the 
court has been occupied in the trial of the case against G. W. 
Gardner, a white physician of .some prominence, who is charg- 
ed with illicit intercourse with Mary Hunt, a mulatto woman 
in his employ. 

"Last evening the jury went out and at 0:80 this morning 
they agreed upon a verdict of guilty. In announcing his de- 
cission, .Judge Van Epps reviewed the case and said: 

" "It is ])erhaps a practical way of influencing that })ublic 
])olicy sought to be secured in such jjvoposed legislation as the 
Glenii Hill for courts to impose penalties ujwn white men who 
defile themselves with negro women. In order that the peace 
and purity of the homes of our reputable citizens may be pre- 
served it is my solemn duty to break up the unholy home of 
Dr. (iardner and ^lary Hunt, and to blazon foith their true re- 
lations to the community in the burning lines of judicial 
sentence.' 

"Judge Van Epps then sentenced Gardner to twelve months 
on the chain gang, and to pay a fine of S1,000." 



THE NEGRO. 79 

The following may also be regarded as an object lesson illus- 
trative of some of the foregoing observations : 

ELOPKD WITH A NKGUO. 

'• I-iTTi.E Rock, Oct. 5. — Latest advices from Hrownstown, 
Ark., reports a most sensational elopement and killing at that 
place. 

"A negro'man, somewhat prepossessing in appearance came 
to Brownstown to take charge of the colored academy at tliat 
place. Soon after his arrival he l)ecame attentive to a young 
white girl, a Miss Ina Jones, daughter of the wealthiest i)lanter 
in the county, and despite the entreaties of her parents and 
friends, the girl allowed the attentions and finally announced 
her intention of marrying Jeffries, and although she was care- 
fully watched she succeeded in eloping with the negro. 

''Her father, with several others, immediately started in 
pursuit and succeeded in overtaking the pair. JeflVies was in- 
stantly killed, over thirty balls having lodged in his body. 

"The girl says she is glad Jeffries was killed ; that she could 
not resist lii.N facination, and did not realize what she had done 
until she found she was the wife of a negro." 

But why kill the negro man onl}' for this unlawful of- 
fense? Why not kill the white man for the same offense 
against law and the Negro race — the white man who marries a 
negro woman or lives in open or secret concubinage with her? 
Will some political economist or social philosopher rise and 
explain? 

And this sample of some of the i)ossibilities of the case : 

A NEGRO SCOU.NDIJKL KILLS Ills W IlirK MISTHIOSS. 

" Levi Hill, a Negro who has been living in Delta for some 
time, shot and killed a white woman with whom he had been 
living as his wife. The woman was known as T.i/.zie Hill, and 
the shooting occurred betwet'U 4 and .") o'clock Moiuluy evening, 
the 7th of November. After the shooting the Negro took the 
road down the river, threatening to kill every one he met. 
Yesterday he was found on the O'Brien place, three miles be- 
low Delta, arrested and taken back there. He claims that he 
shot the woman accidently, and that he sent for the deputy 
Sheriff to surrender himself. He was carried to Tallulah and 
placed in jail, but it is rumored that '-.ludge l.yneh"' is to try 
liis case should he arrive in time." 

Had an inscrutible Providence sent us instead of the Sene- 
gambian and Guinea Negro that Long-eared tribe of whom 
Stanley heard through a native African traveler, a better pur- 
{)Ose had probably been subserved. This native traveler told 
Stanlay that this tribe had ears that hung down to the around, 
that one ear was used as a mat to slee}) on and the other for 
covering! Now an enterprising Northern theoretical or South 
em pratical miscegenationist of the economic Hen Frankliu 



80 THE NEGRO. 

school would find money in a tribe like this. Here is cheap 
adaptability to the wants of civilized man. True, the ears 
would be shortened in mixing, but they would make admirable 
automatic fans and therein subserve a valuable purpose. The 
' swell,' negro of the South is affecting the umbrella, the duster 
and the fan, and some of the women in hoeing cotton are tying 
parasols to their backs. An automatic fan would be a valuable 
addition to their wardrobe. Let the slave trade be reopened! 

The country in Africa known on the map as Ethiopia, 
(meaning land of the scorched faces) is often confounded with 
black Africa, hence we sometimes hear the Negro called an 
Ethiopian ; but the inhabitants of Southeastern Ethiopia are a 
reddish brown in color ; they are however surrounded by dark 
skinned tribes, probably Negroes proper. (Encyclopedia Brit- 
tanica on Ethiopia.) Homer describes the Ethiopian in, the 
lUiad as a "blameless race," according to Pope's translation. 
Such characterization by the poet, as well as their color, it may 
be seen, effectually distinguishes them from the African proper 
as we know him, and as he is reported by travelers in the native 
land of the race. The words "can the Etheopian change his 
skin" in the 13th chapter of the prophecies of Jeremiah, may 
give co/or to the idea that the Ethiopian was a Negro, but, they 
can as well apply to the skin of a reddish brown man as a black 
man. The Pi'ophet penned his words 602 years before Christ, 
and the Poet his, 900 years before Christ. The presumption is 
that the poet meant the original Etheopian — the reddish brown 
man — as he would naturally determine the character of the 
people, while the prophet may have meant a black man — an 
Etheopian geogra})hically and i)olitically, though not by blood, 
just as we would call a naturalized C^erman or Irishman an 
American. 

The propensity to extravagance of expressionand marvel- 
ous })redictions concerning the Negro, amongst those who have 
sought to enlighten the world about him is most remarkable. 
Accounting for this propensity might be an eas}' enough task 
if all of those who thus write and talk about him were equally 
extravagant and silly about other things, but they are not. 
Some of them are wise on other topics, but this one seems to 
unsettle their minds. In all they say about it, there is no sug- 
gestion to other minds but that of the straight jacket, and 
the lunatic asylum for themselves. We have a violent and in- 
curable case in the following-named gentleman, who was really 
wise and learned about other things : 

A learned Scotchman, Alexander Kinmont, wlio delivered 
a course of lectures in Cincinnati in 1889, on the Natural Histo- 
ry of Man, which were afterwards put into book form, in which 
he treated of the Negro at considerable length, erroneously 
speaking of him constantly as an Ethiopian, and in which he 
quoted near the opening of his remarks upon him; the passage 



THE NEGRO. 81 

in the Uliadjust referred to, and makes it the basis of the 
wildest atul ti)o-<t absurd theory of the Negro's future, iinagiiui- 
able. Out of this "blameless race!" is to come, he suspects, a 
more })eifect form of Christianity tiiaii the Caucasian race is 
capable of, arguing that their natural traits of character '"augur 
a peculiarly gentle and beautiful state of civilizati(;n 1" when the 
day of his avvakeningshall come, and comparing him with the 
Caucasian, he says : " All the sweeter graces of the Christian re- 
ligion a|)j)ear almost too tropical and tender i)lants, to grow in 
the soil of the Caucasian mind ; they require a character of liu- 
man nature of which you can see the rude lineaments in the 
Ethiopian, to be implanted in and gro\v naturally and beauti- 
fully withal." 

The Scotch are a level-headed people nearly always, and 
had this one delivered his lectures in the period of t)ie Negro's 
freedom in thiscountry. and after we had learned what we know 
today, from African explorers, of the true character of the Ne- 
gro, he would hardly have indulged in such sublimated non- 
sense — such a " baseless fabric of a vision." What he has said 
would not be noticed except for the error he makes in calling 
the Negro an Ethiopian, and to say that much of the ridiculous 
estimate of the Negro's present character and future possibili- 
ties arises from this false idea of his exceptional aniialtility, 
leading captive many silly women and hare-brained cianksof 
the sterner sex. But this Scotchman, however, puts his broad 
foot down squarely on amalgamation, saying: 

''Of the unnatural mixture or amalgamation of the two 
races (meaning the Caucasian and African) I shun to speak; 
to the evil effects of it, the Copts bear testimony, " Venerh iiwmi'- 
menta nefnndse.''' The Copts are descendants of the ancient 
Egyptians. 

And this of the Copts is a reminder of the fact that the 
newspapers are reporting the Hon. Fred Douglass as having 
said, after his return from his foreign travels, that his investi- 
gations in Egypt satisfied him that the ancient E>ryptians were 
not negroes. Happy Egyptians! He is reported to have said 
further, that the Soudanese soldiers (negroes) are very brave, 
being preferred by the English above the Egyptians. While 
not being disposed to disparagement of the Negro's courage, it 
may be remarked that the sensual delights of the Paradise prom- 
ised to those who fall in battle in the cause of the Prophet 
might lead these Mohammedan negroes to court a speedy death 
ihat they might the sooner enter upon the promised carnal fe- 
licities. 

The Atlanta Constitution, whose editor (Mr. Grady) in his 
reply to Mr. Geo. W. Cable, in the Century for 1.S85, " prophe- 
sied smooth things" in the future relations of the races in the 
South, contained in its columns in a late number, an extraur- 

G 



82 THE NEGRO. 

dinary communication purporting to come from Abbeville, 
South Carolina. 

This correspondent ("Mag") heads her (or his) communica- 
tion " The Negro's Fate," and succeeds only in making a mud- 
dy stream muddier. In fact, in giving the rationale of the 
things predicated, she (or he) scarcely rises to the point of mak- 
ing it as "clear as mud." As, for instance, in speaking of the 
effects of miscegenation : 

" Here Nature stamps the ofltspring with a mark that goes 
down from generation to generation ; and the process once be- 
gun, we can well imagine how this mark, this bleaching, 
should ever progressively grow without any extraordinary de- 
gree of immorality on the part of the whites and without that 
progressive scale of vice which a hasty observer might infer. 
Thus, if the son and the daughter of a genuine white and gen- 
uine black marry, their offspring will be two degrees lighter 
than their parents. Indeed, the continuance of such descent 
is a certain kind of pledge that an indiscriminate commerce 
— the worst form of the vice — has not as yet widely obtained. 
In the latter case a decided decrease in the colored population 
would take place." 

Besides the " mud " and solecisms of this passage, what 
could be more absurd than to say, "thus if the son and the daugh- 
ter of a genuine white and genuine black marrv. their offspring 
will be two degrees lighter than their parents?" Two degrees 
lighter than a genuine white! 

In a further darkening of counsel, this writer says in anoth- 
er place: 

" But the true cause, whatever the circumstances, of this 
bleaching of the African race is the power of Caucasian blood. 
It conquers the blood of the race with which it mixes, just as 
surely as it outwardly triumphs by force when brought into 
violent collision with those other races. The indomitable will, 
the restless intellect, the natural energy of the white man are 
half imparted to his mixed offspring, and make him a mro 
complete, a more provident, a more perfect man than his 
darker, easy-going brother." 

What is herein attributed to blood and the superior mental 
endowments of the white half of the mulatto is simply a cli- 
rna^ic effect. This is a white man's latitude just as Africa is a 
black man's. The bleaching goes on here and the darkening 
goes on there. Stanley observed this darkening out tendency on 
the Eastern coast of Africa, where the Arab had mingled his 
blood with the African — running in an opposite direction to 
that which it runs in this climate. No, the whole thing is only 
" skin deej) ;" it is only a surface mark which indicates nothing 
but latitude. 

Man is simply an animal in his body, and the analogies of 
the whole animal kingdom show if not exactl}^ an equal, yet a 



THE NEGRO. 83 

persistent partnership in progeny— certain marks which crop 
out sometimes long after the origin is forgotten, called scien- 
tifically, atavism. Tliis has been observed frequently in distant 
generations of human hybrids, where the origin was directly 
black and white— croppingout inblack marks, showing that this 
theory of washing or bleaching out the negro half of the blood 
IS simply absurd. No, it is there to stay, though the skin may 
not indicate its presence; and this mode— the bleaching out 
process— of getting rid of the negro, except in appearance, is 
equally absurd, allowing that a race of human hybrids can be 
indefinitely perpetuated, which scientists deny. 

"According to this law (the unity of Type) every living 
thing that comes into the world is compelled to stamp upon its 
ofispring the image of itself."— Prof. Drummond. And under 
this idea of losing the negro in the white man, what becomes 
of the law of continuity ?— which the same writer calls " the 
law of laws," and which another calls " the expression of the 
Divine veracity in nature." Huxley says: "It is the first great 
law of Reproduction that the offspring tends to resemble its pa- 
rent or parents more closely than anything else." Another 
writer still, speaking of the vegetable kingdom, says: 

" A plant nor tree never forgets itself. Cheat it out of its 
root, and its stem remains faithful. The minutest twig, put 
out to nurse upon the arm of a foreign mother, feels the thrill 
of the great primal law in its filmiest fibre, and breathes in ev- 
ery expression of its life its fidelity." 

All of the analogies in nature and all human observation 
attest the ?«if/?/ingr fidelity of the law of Continuity. It is im- 
mortal in its essence and being ! 

Why should there be Reversion to Type onli/ on the appar- 
ently good side (allowing it to be good, which is very question- 
able so far as the individual guilty man, and not "his race, is 
concerned) and not to what we assume to be the bad side? If 
it be true as we assume generally, that the black side is the 
worst side, then philosophy, science, observation and revelation 
all teach that the Reversion will be to that side, because the 
princi{)le of evil is more powerful than the principle of good ; 
as is shown in everything endowed with life when cultivation 
is neglected. Degeneration in the living world like gravitation 
in the universe, is the dominant force. The pollen from a 
single bitter orange tree in an orchard of sweet oranges will 
•corru})t the whole, while a single sweet orange in a bitter 
orange orchard makes no impression upon the others hut itself 
becomes corrupt. (This is said to be true; it is not vouched 
for l)y the author.) 

Since the pre{)aration of this work was completed the fol- 
lowing valuable thoughts have fallen under the eye of the 
writer: "The distinctions of race are drawn by (Jod. He 
always acts upon sufficient reasons in all that He does ; however 



84 THE NEGRO. 

unknown to us, they are guaranteed to us by His infinite per- 
fection The attempt to obliterate distinctions established by 
infinite wisdom is infinite folly. All measures tending to_ that 
result are, by that very fact, marked as a resistance to a divine 
ordination, and an infinite peril to man. The law of love, so 
far from impeaching the policy of preserving our race purity 
untainted, absolutelv demands it. Amalgamation between 
races stamped with the radical distinctions of the five great 
families of the human race will result in the deterioration ot 
the best qualities of both ; and the laws of nature requiring the 
maintenance of the distinction will re-establish it by the ulti- 
mate victory of the baser blood. The white race ot the bouth, 
broucrht into close relations with the Negro, has no higher 
dutv^'through the long centuries to come, than to preserve the 
purity of their blood." (Rev. Doctor Vaughn in Presbyter- 
ian Quarterly for October, 1887.) 

This South Carolina writer says in another place: ''Here 
is a significant fact. Most of the Southern States have adopted 
laws against the inter-marriage of the races, and the old laws 
against adultery and fornication are being taken out and tur- 
bishedupanew with an eye to this special kind. Of course 
such legislation, though good in intent, is perfectly lutUe. 

Like the Northern philosophers the writer is supposed to 
have concluded that " help it we can't, " and as there is no in- 
dignant protest, that "hinder it we won't. The Atlanta 
Jud^e quoted a few pages back does not agree with this cor- 
respondent. And this in conclusion: " Prophecies are often 
idle experiments; but facts will warrant this. In fifty years^ 
time a black negro will be a rarity ; in a century a curiosity. 
If they are now " almost as scarce as the wild Indians who once 
roved over these fields," as he says in another place, then the 
writer is too liberal for the fifty or one hundred years hence 
There should be less than none then! The "estimates need 
readiusting. So much space would not be given to a notice ot 
this communication but for its source (South Carolina) and its 
medium of publication, (The Atlanta Constitution) both ot 
which are calculated to call attention to it, and if left uncon- 
tradicted, to give weight to its misstatements. Such extrava- 
gance from a Northern source might be excused on the score o 
icrnorance, but coming from a Southern source itcannot avail 
of this excuse, and is to be measured alone by its character, 
helped as best it may be by a spirit of charity. It such writers 
would " altogether hold their peace it would be their wisdom, 
as Job said to his miserable comforters. 

It is a singular fact that most writers on the Negro since the 
15th Amendment to the Constitution made him a "new 
creature," and a great "problem," proceed upon the principle 
(and for the same reason) of the advice given by the old preacher 



THE NEGRO. ^^ 

to the young preacher: " My brother when your thoughts fail 
you, then howl! " 

The divinity stirring within tliese howleis, North and 
South, these seer's and prophets, who can't help it and won't 
hinder it, arouses the suspicion that they had been bitten by a 
" blue gum " darkey and were in the convulsive stage of a gen- 
uine case of negrophoi)ia. If this malady be as incurable and 
as communicable as its prototype, hydrophobia, all we can do 
for its victims is to strap them down — impale them Uj)on the 
gibbet of i)ublic opinion — so that they will not be able to com- 
municate the disease to others, and then let them die. It might 
be well, in the interest of medical science, for our paternal 
government to send one subject to M. Pasteur at Paris, to see 
if he can discover in the brain the bactria or microcobe that 
does the mischief. 

Mr. Grady says, in the Century article in reply to Mr. 
Cable's, on the question of the permanent dwelling together of 
the two races : 

"This is a momentous question. It involves a i)roblem 
that, all tilings considered, is without a precedent or parallel. 
Can the South carrv tliis problem in honor and in peace to an 
equitable solution ? We reply that for ten years the South has 
been doing this very thing, and with at least apparent success. 
No impartial and observent man can say that in the present 
aspect of things there is cause for alarm, or even for doubt. In 
the experience of the past few years there is assuredly reason 
for encouragement. There may be those who discern danger in 
the distant future. We do not. Beyond the apprehensions 
which must for along time attend a matter so serious, we see 
nothing but cause for congratulation. "' 

In the foregoing extract he is treating the subject only 
optically, not philosophically. What he has seen may have 
made a "different impression upon his mind from that made 
upon otlier minds. But — not to pursue the matter further — it 
is hardly probable that he is to-day in the enjoyment of the 
same peace of mind on the subject that he was then, and that 
he would hardly to-day express the same unlimited confidence 
about the future he then did. Recent developments in his own 
State forbid it. 

If the "to-do" raised in Georgia and the North upon the 
passage of the law by that State forbidding the co-education of 
the races has not enabled Mr. Grady to " discern danszcr in the 
distant future," perhaps the subj(jined morceau dislied out but 
recently to the peoj)le of Atlanta, Mr. Grady's own city, by a 
negro, one of the leaders of public oi)inion among the Negroes, 
may enable him to see it. 

"Here is a pretty sweet utterance in a colored paper, pub- 
lished in Atlanta, Ga., and delighting in the appropriate nan)e 
of "Herald of United Churches : 



86 THE NEGRO, 

'The constant reports of white women in the South heing 
raped by colored men has become a stale old lie. It does seem 
that a great many of them get off in lonesome places with col- 
ored men in a surprising degree. Tiiis is a sort of predestina- 
tion, but there seems to be a great spirit of watchfulness on the 
part of the white men, who somehow don't seem to trust their 
white sisters with the Negro. These white girls want watch- 
ing as well as the Negroes. The whole thing looks like a part- 
nership business until somebody is caught.'" 

(It will, the writer trusts, be noted that the foregoing 
strictures appl}' only partially to Mr. Grady's article, which, on 
the whole is conceived in a fine spirit and is an admirable re- 
ply to Mr. Cable. The writer criticises anything said by Mr. 
Grad}' with great diffidence because he has great admiration 
for his exceptional abilities.) 

This question is altogether too vital in its nature for us to 
trust to any man's sight, in its discussion or its determination. 
We cannot trust to what Mr. Grady or any other observer ^eea. 
Appearances are deceptive frequently, and the organs of vision 
are often defective. Color blindness is very common ! It is far 
safer to trust to the principles that underlie influence and 
govern human canduct. The strife of tongues — contradictory 
testimony — may confuse without settling anything. But what 
need have we for witnesses when a living fixed principle that 
governs all men will settle the question? This principle dwel- 
ling in the Negro, as in other men, is to be free to have, to do, and 
to be all that anybody else has, and does, and is. And if he deny 
it, or authorizes another to deny it for him, he is simply belieing 
his nature and is not to be believed. It is the height of folly and 
imprudence for us to deceive ourselves about the Negro or to 
allow ourselves to be deceived by him, and this we do whenever 
we assume that he will be satisfied with a line of conduct any 
more restricted than that which is prescribed to other men. He 
may submit to it for a time, but his nature will break out in 
spite of all the rules you may prescribe for him. 

The following recent telegram published after the foregoing 
was written is in line and perfect harmony with this argument. 

"Cincinnati, Sept. 21. — The operation of the law of last 
winter which reuealed the statute authorizing the establish- 
ment of separate schools for colored pupils is producing friction 
in many places. At Oxford, ()., the colored pupils nearly all 
deserted their own schools and applied for admission to the 
white schools. A public meeting was held and the school- 
board was asked to order the colored pupils to their own school. 
The board complied with the request, and the colored pupils 
propose to apply for a mandamus. At Yellow Springs the 
school closed indefinitely or until the Legislature can meet and 
take some action. At Ripley O., a suit of mandamus lias been 
entered to compel the admission of colored pupils." 



THE NEGRO. ST 

See also the following : 

riii; COLOR i.iNi-: in thk north. 

"Kansas has the largest and most reliahle Repuhlican ma- 
jority of any of the States in the I'nion; hut even out in Kan- 
sas the color line is drawn and the color (question is producinor 
sometrouhle. In Fort Scott there isa heated and exciting con- 
troversy between the Negroes and the IJepublican School Hoard 
over mixed schools. The Negroes insist for the same privil- 
eges in the public schools as the whites, and the School Board, 
which is unanimously llepublican, emi)hatically declare, on the 
other hand, that they shall not be admitted with the white 
youth, but continue seperate. The negro question is more 
serious in Kansas than in most of the Northern States, because 
there a:e many Negroes there and their admission on terms of 
eijuality is more unpleasant to the white people, Republicans as 
well as Democrats, than wiiere they are scarcer." 

Unless we are prepared to deny that the Negro is a human 
being we must credit liim witli having all the attributes that 
belong to human nature, held though they may be, in his case 
in a modified form, yet existing and subject to the law of growth 
under favorable conditions. He may be only half a man at 
]iresent, as he is only half a citizen under the restrictions 
thrown around him by society, but if he is capable of growing 
to be a whole man, then we must allow that he is influenced by 
the same motives — the same ambitions, desires, i^-c. — that move 
any other whole man. 

The candid and intelligent observer, and thoughtful reader 
of current events, cannot possibly suj)press a feeling of anxiety 
and incertitude about the future relations cf the two races in 
the South. We ma}' cry peace and prophecy smooth things as 
much as we will, but if the conditions precedent to these exist 
not, we shall only cry and i)rophecy in vain. If they be smooth 
now (and that is more hoped tlian believed) they must become 
rough in the future, if causes shallcontinue to ])roduce their legi- 
timate effects. Is it in the wisdom of man to nuike tlie Jordan 
of these two races, moving side by side, and nearly equal in num- 
bers, and so different in their natures, their histories, and tlieir 
cultivation, an ''easy road to travel," the whole comi)licated by 
an equality of rights under the law, and a social ine(|uality a.s- 
seited and piacticed by the one race, while social equality is de- 
sired by the other, and is kept from assertion only by the/bnr 
of circumstancesand not the (-/^oic-e of the will. For say what we 
may in our desire to make the situation look smooth ami com- 
fortable, about the Negro preferring the .society of his own color, 
the truth is he wants the privilege of going where he j)/caxr.s in 
any })ubli('. place, and wherever he can in any private ])lace. 
This is simply human nature and the Negro being iuunan it 
will assert itself wherever and whenever the ojiportunity pre- 
sents itself with a shr)w of success. 



THE NEGRO. 

We cannot believe the Negro of fair intelligence and mod- 
erate auibitioa whosa^-s he is .satisfied with the situation, simp- 
ly because it is not natural for him to be satisfied, and we have 
more faith in his nature as a witness than in his words. He 
may be silent but he is not satisfied. "We can escape doubt 
(here) only by escaping thought." Nature never "palters with 
us in a double sense." No human contrivance can change </<e 
Tiaiitre of anything. At best we can but modify, working in 
the line ot nature, whatever that may be. 

There is no good to come of deluding ourselves with false 
theories — of cherishing and insisting upon unnatural views 
about this matter. The sooner we fall upon a natural 
and practical course of reasoning about it the better it will be 
for both races, for by such course of reasoning we will the soon- 
er arrive at iitrue solution of the question. 

The great end (looking to the happiness of both races) to 
be desired and sought, is a state in which there Avill be no 
more friction between the races than there is between white 
and white and black and black. Is such a state possible? 
That is the question the country must settle sooner or later, or 
take the consequences which mws^ flow from its not being set- 
tled; consequences which are as sure to follow as daylight fol- 
lows the dawn, as fever follows the chill. Is there friction be- 
tween the two races now and will it increase with tinje? There 
can be but one answer to this question and that is an emphatic 
YES. Wiiat we see with open eye gives the answer for the 
presentand what weknowof the conditions of growth gives the 
answer for the future. We are now in the shadow of the com- 
ing events. And what is the result of continued and increas- 
ing friction? Fire! Nothing les?. We may oil the bodies in 
contact with e(|ual laws or throw the w-ater of class legislation 
upon them, but a-^long as the friction continues the fire is not 
quenched and "their wormdieth not." 

What are the signs of this increasing friction and antagon- 
ism? First, on the side of the Negro, a desire to be and to do 
what the white man is and does; to elevate himself to the same 
level of privileges without the })rerequisite schooling and fit- 
ness for the elevation. He argues by the short method of the 
right giving the fitness. The law opens positions to him, and 
he is a voter. Why not vote himself into the position? 

But to return to the main argument. As light begins to 
dawn upon the Negro through education (though he may as yet 
only "see men as trees walking") it reveals in these dim out- 
lines that which is, to his untried, unpracticed mental vision, 
an exagerated glory ; and these revelations excite his natural- 
ly lively imagination to the point of appropriation, deceiving 

himself, and sometimes "deceiving the very elect" b}' his 

wordy exhibitions. Yet he may be, like Blind Tom, in music, 

only an inspired idiot. Quickness of parts with aptness to 



THE NEGRO. 89 

learn is a small thing. " Wisdom is the principal thing '' (says 
Solomon) as well m worldly things as in sj)iritual, and wisdom 
comes only with the grey hairs ol civilization ; and not always 
then, as witness the voluble Irish with all their splendid wit and 
eclipsing oratory, as compared with the cold and stammering 
Scotchman or the phlegmatic and gutteral toned (lerman. 
" Why is this " you ask, when they all have brains essentially 
alike, and all walk upon two feet, and are "'of one blood " accord- 
ing to scripture? As well n:iight you ask why does the rain 
always come from somewhere else than where 3'ou are; why the 
"wind bloweth where it listeth;" why a woman sits on the 
floor instead of a chair to put on her shoes and stockings, or 
why a dog turns around before lying down. They do it, and we 
have to stop at the limit of vision. But why not variety of 
adaptation in man just as in other animals. Take the horse for 
instance, all of one blood or species, but what a variety of strain 
or adaptation, and they all have their uses. We are fitted by 
nature for the oflices we have to i)erfonn and nature never 
wastes her materials. If we are moles that live under ground 
or cnts^acea dwelling in the watery caverns of the earth, we are 
without eyes, except in semblance (not in office) to preserve 
symetery and conform to the law of beauty where these are 
needed in complement of the whole. This Negro creature was 
formed for a purpose. \\'hat his "chief end "' in the economy of 
nature may be it might seem egotistical in one to say, but it as 
safe to say it is not to rule the white man ! 

Educating the Negro is certainly increasing the friction 
between the races. It brings them nearer together and the 
closer together the}^ get the greater the friction. They 
commenced the new race of life together first in the field; then 
in the shop, now in the professions; at the bar, in medicine, in 
the pulpit and ecclesiastical assemblies, in the newspaper, in 
the army, in the navy, in Congress, in the Legislature. Where 
won't they be? inferior as they may be regarded. Can relations 
between them and the whites in these various callings be noain- 
tained permanently ?.(;i</;ott( collision, when their numbers will 
grow so that they will become a body, and the courtesies of to- 
day, in their fewness, will give place to class strife and bitter- 
ness? Can these relations rem;un peaceable ivithout social 
equality or vul/i social inequality? 

See what the Negro's increasing jn'esence in our church 
courts is doing. The laity and clergy of the Episcopal church 
at variance, and the Northern and Southern Presbyterian 
churches (allowing that other (liU'cfences may be removed) kept 
assunder b}' this question, with no com[)romise ground to stand 
u})on. Each is fixed in its ])olicy. For the Southern body to 
yield to the Northern on this question and adopt its policy 
would be to disrupt itself. But this it never will do. And if 



90 THE NEGRO. 

there be friction in the churches between the two races, how is 
it to be kept out of other organizations? 

And it must not be forgotten that the thousands now being 
educated will, like our educated young white men, -as a rule, 
seek the jjrofessions for a livelihood, and when they get strong 
and numerous they will claim a monopoly of the ])atronage of 
the blacks, and will get it, even though their qualifications be 
meagre. They are not seeking an education to be used in the 
field or the workshop. To go hack there, would be like going 
back to slavery, in their estimation. And when the professions 
get full of them how is friction to be avoided ? 

Again they are beginning to accumulate wealth, slowly it 
is true, owing to their almost universal thriftlessness, but in 
time this will come to them, and they will become large land 
holders; will be stockholders in our banks and other corpora- 
tions. They can't be kept out if they choose to go in, and they 
will go in from pride of wealth and to get prominence; and 
when their fashionable sons and daughters go North, like Mr. 
Fred Douglass, and get white wives and husbands, and begin to 
crowd the hotels at fashionable watering places, and then bring 
their wives and husbands back to winter in the. South, we shall 
see more of the friction. 

As they get able they will form military organizations all 
over the Soutli. They are doing it now, and are being encour- 
aged in it by our Southern Governors and politicians. These 
can't discountenance it so long as the negroes are citizens, and 
what's more to W\fiVi\, voter h. We have already had a taste of the 
friction from this source in the late military drill at Wash- 
ington City. When our riot? occur, as they surely will, between 
the races, what will our Southern Governors do ? Will they 
order out both colors to suppress the riots ? Why one and not 
the other ? Is this one of the "easy" questions for our Governors 
to answer? And have we not just here a world of friction in 
store for us ? 

Here are cases in point, just going the rounds of the press 
in the shape of telegrams, and which have occurred since the 
foregoing was written: 

A THREATENING WAR OK HACKS AT I'ETERSBUKG, VA. 

"Petersburg, Aug. 31. — The city is in a feverish state of 
excitement over a clash of races. I^ast week a negro was lined 
S50 and sent to jail for striking a won^an. On Friciay, Dr. Hil- 
ton, a i)rominent physician, struck a colored girl. He was 
arrested and the case continued till to-day. The negroes demand 
that the doctor receive the same punishment as inflicted upon 
the negro. .\ violent card, signed by pi-ominent negroes, was 
published in the Index-Appeal yesterday. The signers and 
the editor were arrested for libel. Kxcitement became so intense 
that the mayor has ordered three companies of militia to hold 



THE NEGRO, 91 

themselves in readiness for any emersjency. (Ireat anxiety is 
felt over tlie result of to-day's decision." 

"Np:\vsfrom Columbia, Texas, is to the effect that in the iight 
between the whites and bhicks in ^^atafJorda county, last Sun- 
day, five negroes were killed. The report is that the negroes, 
seeing that the whites are determined, are deserting their lead- 
ers and beginning to scatter. The Houston Liglit Guard is 
pushing forward from Brazoria to the scene of the war between 
the races, but it is believed thattlie trouble will be over before 
the command arrives. — A'. 0. States, Sept. "dOth. 

A WAR OF RACES — STARTLING RUMORS. 

"Brookiiavex, Miss, Oct. 3. — There is said to be trouble 
brewing between the negroes and the wliites about twenty miles 
southeast of here, on the line of Pike and Lawrence counties. 
About 3C)0 men of each color are said to be under arms. Several 
armed whites from here have gone to the scene. The origin of 
the trouble is not stated." 

THE XEGROKS AROUSKD. 

"Chicago, III., Nov. 8. — A Chattanooga, Tenn., special says : 
A telegram from Soddy, a mining town, twenty-tive miles from 
this city, says the mountaineers have armed themselves and 
are marching against the negroes; that this has aroused the 
negroes and they have all armed and are awaiting the approach 
of the offensive party. The sheriff with a possee has gone to 
the scene of trouble. Great excitement prevails and the women 
and children have taken refuge at one end of the town. It is a 
Welsh mining town of one thousand people and about two 
hundred negroes are employed at the coke ovens. The trouble 
has grown out of a fight between a negro and a white man in 
which the latter suffered. The mountaineers now threaten to 
take the darke}^ or kill the whole colored population." 

MARTIN STATION, MISS. — FUTILK ATTEMPT TO LY.NCII PRISONERS. 

'•Jackson, Nov, 23.- — An attem]>t was made at Martin Station 
last night by an armed body of 3(10 men to lynch three negroes 
who confessed to the attempted murder of a fruit tree agent 
named Knight, a week ago, for the purpose of robbery. Knieht 
has since recovered and identified the would-be assassins. The 
])risoners, fortunately, had been removed to the Port (iibson 
jail before the arrival of the regulators. Fears are still enter- 
tained for their safety." 

NEGRO RIOT ON CAT ISLAND. — THE nLACK FIENDS ARi; SllOl' FOR 

INSULTINC; WHITE LADIES. 

"The Memphis Ledger of Friday says that there is an im- 
pending i-ace war at Cat Island, thirty miles below Mempliis. 
James Hannlett and Martin Thomas, white laborers, arrived 
on the L., N. O. iSc T. railroad and told a harrowing tale. They 
said that several white ladies had been grossly insulted by 



92 THE NEGRO. 

black men. The husbands of the women sought out the black 
scoundrels, found them at a store among friends and a general 
fight ensued. No one was hurt and twoof the lecherous negroes 
were arrested. They were arraigned before a negro magistrate 
yesterday for trial. A large crowd assembled at the magis- 
trate's office and there was another fight. The two negro 
prisoners were riddle with balls. Several other negroes were 
wounded. The blacks dispersed, bat armed themselves and 
announced themselves determined to kill every white person 
on the island. Hannlett and Thomas were seen in the woods 
by a gang of infuriated negroes shortly after the killing and 
had to flee for their lives." 

Had these been manufactured cases to suit the writers argu- 
ment nothing he could have said would have been more illus- 
trative. 

And what could better illustrate the tendency of things 
than the following late outrages by whites: 

DASTARDLY ASSASSINATION IN YAZOO COUNT Y. 

Some time since Sandy McGee, a negro, came from Brook- 
haven to pick cotton, and after working awhile for Mr. Jesse 
Bruin field, moved from there to the place of Mr. D. L. Scale. 
On Friday night he went out to pick cotton by moonlight and 
was never seen until next morning when his dead body was 
discovered in the pasture of Mr. Sam Wilson literally riddled 
by bullets, both from shot-gun and pistols. His body was shot 
all to ])ieces and mutilated. The number of horse tracks show- 
ed that he was taken from the field to the pasture and then shot 
to death. A hat, whose owner is said to be known, was found 
near at hand. A Coroner's inquest was held before Justice J. 
A. Clark who brought in a finding of murder against Mr. Ben. 
Ellis and three other young men of that neighborhood." — 
Yazoo Herald. 

A NEGRO SLAIN IX SPORT J5Y A MOB OF DRUNKEN WHITE MEN. 

"Lafayette, La., Oct. 4. — Last Saturday night a negro by 
the name of Benos, was shot and mortally wounded by unknown 
white parties about four miles west of this place. The unfor- 
tunate man lingered until yesterday morning and died unable 
to identify his assailants. It appears that the negro, while 
returning home u[)on the ])ublic highway, was attacked by four 
or five white men. A few words were exchanged and some one 
of the party fired a pistol, the ball taking effect in the negro's 
neck. 'J'he act appears to be entirely unprovoked and every 
effort will be made to secure the guilty ])arties." — Picayune 
Spec id I. 

WANTON MUHDEl; IN FLORIDA. 

"Ai'Ai.AcHicoi.A, Oct. 2(5. — News has reached here that a 
white man named Parish shot and killed tliree negroe men in 
Calhoun county a fe.v days ago. Four negroes were using 



II 



THE NEGRO. !>:> 

Parish's boat to gather up logs which had broken loose from a 
raft, when Parish came along. It is said that the negroes told 
Parish that they had no intention of stealing the boat, but 
Parish would not receive explanations. He raised his Win- 
chester and shot one down in the boat, killed another on the 
raft and another who was attempting to run away. The fourth 
dived overboard and escaped." 

This Florida man assumes that there is no more harm in 
shooting '-niggers" than in shooting alligators or blackbirds. 

Then look at this horror, whether the young man was 
guilty as charged by the woman, or was innocent : 

A NEGRESS ACCUSES A YOUN<; WHITK .M.\N OK .VSSAfLT, .\.M) UK 

KILLS IlKli AT THE END. 

"New Orleans, Oct. 31. — The Times-Democrat's Cofleeville 
Miss., special says: News has just reached here of a terrible 
tragedv, which occurred in Airmount, a small village twelve 
miles east of this place last Saturday evening. On Friday Mag 
Sherman, colored, appeared before officials and swore out a 
warrant, charging that Sell Boyle, a young white man of the 
neighborhood, had the night before broken into her house and 
indecently assaulted herself and her eight year old daughter. 
Boyle was arrested and carried to Airmount Saturdry afternoon, 
all'the while protesting his innocence. The trial was called 
about o c'clock p. m. and all assembled in the court room where 
after being sworn the woman began telling her story, occasion- 
ally interlacing it with 'God knows the man and he knows it 
himself. I saw him good when he grabbed me and it was sure- 
ly. Sell Boyle.' 

"As all the sickening details came forth the young man's 
face began to pale with wrath, and when the woman concluded 
her testimony Boyle stejjped forward, and drawing his revolver, 
shot her through the heart. As the body was falling he lired 
again, the ball this time penetrating the woman's brain. 
Flourishing his pistol the young man made his way to the 
door, where he was joined by Willie Pate, another young man 
who Was related to him. Pate, with drawn revolver kept the 
crowd at bay until Boyle could mount his horse and escape. 
The woman ' was killed instantly, and up to this time the 
murderer has not been arrested. Up to this time young Boyle 
has been recognized as a moral, hard-working boy." 

Further from Florida. 

srWANKK COUNTY, FLORID.V.— JiKlT.V I. T 1! KATM K.NT oK COl.oUKK 

CITIZENS. 

"Jacksonvii.lk, Nov. 23. — News has reached here of the 
most brutal ill-treatment of colored people in Suwance county, 
some miles west of here. Last week Henry Washinghm was 
taken from his home into the woods, stripped, lashed to a tree 
and terribly beaten. 



94 THE NEGRO. 

"Early Sunday morning Peterson Bell, living in the same 
neighborhood, was aroused by the breaking uf his door by axes. 
Before he could dress half a dozen or more masked men rushed 
in, and despite his utmost resistance carried him off into the 
woods, where they stripped and tied him to a tree. His four 
daughters, two of them grown, were also carried along in their 
night clothing and tied to trees near their father. Then, at a 
given signal, all were whipped unmercifully with switches till 
the blood streamed down their backs. No attention was paid 
to their entreaties or prayers, and the fiends only desisted when 
compelled to by sheer exhaustion. They were then released, 
cautioned to keep quiet on pain of death, and released to get 
home as best they could. The people are enraged at these out- 
breaks, and are endeavoring to ferret out the perpetrators, but 
there seems to be no clue, nor any cause for their atrocious 
cruelties." 

And then at this : 

A np:gro shut by a I.AIA'. 

New Orleans, Nov. 8. — The Times-Democrat Plaquemine 
special says: Robt. Jones, colored was shot yesterday by Mrs. 
McKay, who employed Jones' wife as a servant. Yesterday 
while the servant was busily engaged in household work, Jones 
made his appearance and demanded that his wife should go 
back home with him. She refused. Mrs. McKay appearing at 
this moment, Jones turned on her and tried to choke her, 
when she drew a revolver and shot him. After the prelimin- 
ary trial she was released on bond." Justifiable. 

Next! 
np:gro charged with attempted .murder lynched. 

'•Memphis, Dec. 4. — A mob, variously estimated at from 
twenty-fi'/e to seventy-five in number, rode into the little town 
ofCharleston Miss., Jibout fifty miles from this city about 9 
o'clook Saturday night, and surrounded the jail, and, at the 
point of a revolver, forced Jailor Vance to unlock the cells 'in 
which were confined Joe Tribble, Monroe Harris and Charles 
Taylor, three negroes, who were confined pending the action of 
the grand jury on the charge of attempting to assassinate Frank 
Mountz about three weeks ago. The mob carried the three 
prisoners about one mile from the town, and shot Charles 
Taylor and Monroe Harris to death leaving their bodies lying 
in the road riddled with buckshot. What was done with .loe 
Tribble is not known, though it is believed that he also was 
killed." 

Next! 

RECilLAToRS THAT DID NOT KKCLLATE. 

''Lake, Miss, Dec. (J. — Last night a band of regulators went 
to a house about a half a mile north of this place, occupied by 
two negro brothers named Williams, it is supposed for the pur- 



THE NEGRO. '.C, 

poyeof punishing them for misdemeanors. ()n arriving at the 
house they ordered them toojien tliedoor, ami upon refusal hroke 
the door down, when the negrt)es liredon them, killing two white 
men named Ben Grillith and John McCrany. The negroes 
then made their escape and are still at large. It is tliought 
that the end is not yet." 

TlIK LATEST — .\ .NKCiUo olTK.VCiK A.M) lIolMiOK. 

A gentleman of this city is in receipt of a letter from Smith 
county, in which the writer says: "jMrs. Fannie Hushands, 
wife of .iohn Husbands, of Covington county, while en route to 
a visit to her brother, some few miles away, was assaulted and 
robbed. After committing the robbery the negro cut out the 
lady's tongue. The negro was known by the lady who wrote his 
name down. Mr. Husbands is a man of considerable means 
;ind the negro was impressed with the idea, ))erhai)s, that Mrs. 
Husbands had money with her." — INIeridian News, Dec. 1"). 

Page after page of this work could be filled with accounts 
of daily occurrences throughout the country, going to show an 
inextinguishable antagonism between the races ; of unavoidable 
and inevitable causes of friction ; all of which are so directly 
in line of the argument of the book that they look as though 
they had been made to order to illustrate its pages. 

The Negro's courage has not been fairly tested in this coun- 
try. The incentive to the cultivation of that virtue, in 
in the main, has been wanting. The motive oflove of country — 
the patriotic motive — has been wanting. The hearthstone, 
with its sacred ties, has been wanting, and the family tie, as 
a stimulant, from the circumstances of his bondage, and much 
from inclination, has hung loosely about him. The slavery 
system of this country was essentially different from the old 
feudal system of Europe. The thrall of the barons was a sol- 
dier as well as a servant. Fighting was an imjiortant part of 
his business, and by the cultivation of the martial spirit he was 
the better prepared for freedom when it came to him. A Cedric 
the Saxon wnsan impossibility under our slavery system. 

It would be fairer, in judging the Negro in this respect, 
to look at him in his mother country. There he has tribal in- 
terests and his acknowledged home to defend, with the constant 
fear of being made a slave in case of the overthrow of his tribe. 
(for the captive is always held as a slave) and Stanley, in his 
account of their tribal conilicts of arms, and his own conflicts 
with them, does not disparage them in this res})ect. 

The accounts we have of his conduct, as a soldier, in our 
civil war, are conflicting and unreliable. His marked courage 
— that he "fought nobly," can be proved on one side, and his 
extreme cowardice can he ])roved on the other side. The ac- 
counts of neither side are to be trusted. It is altogether proba- 
ble that he was not enough of a soldier " to hurt." ( )n the oth- 
er hand, it is altogether probable that with proper incentives 



96 THE NEGRO. 

and motives, and with the law of self preservation common to 
the whole human family moving him, and a good training, he 
would make a fair soldier. i • .i, 

i^ince the foregoing was written, the writer has read m the 
September (1887) number of Century, Gen. Henry G. Thomas s 
article on "The Colored Troops at Petersburg" in which in 
sneaking of the assault after the exph)sion of the mine, under 
the Confederate works, he says: " These black men commanded 
the admiration and respect of every beholder on that day. 
Acrain he savs : "One little band, after my second charge was 
repulsed defended the entrenchments we had won from the ene- 
m}' exhibiting fighting qualities I never saw surpassed m the 



war " 



This is given for what it is worth. Gen. Thomas's credi- 
bility as a witness can be determined only by those who know 

him. 

The secret societies, so popular with the Negro, though be- 
nevolent and helpful in their purposes, generally,_ are regarded 
with apprehension by the whites, and as furnishing a means 
of fostering the spirit of antagonism to the whites. If it be so 
easvathing with them to convert the pulpit into a political 
rostrum, why not these societies? The facility with which 
charlatans impose upon them in their ignorance, enhances the 
anxiety about these many secret orders. Secret societies have 
been the refuge in all ages of those who have regarded them- 
selves as obiectsof persecution and oppression, and the ^egro, 
withallthefavorshownhim, persistently regards himself as 

such object. 

The Knic^hts of Labor are organizing largely in the South 
on terms of equalitv m i/ie Sod<7/, as understood, between the 
race^ It is claimed bv the white members, that ihey control 
the working of the Order. How long will this docility on the 
Dart of the colored members last, with their overwhelming su- 
perioritv of numbers? Not a day longer than the ambitious 
and intellicrent colored members have thoroughly fiimilianzed 
themselves with the working of the institution. _ Is it to be 
supposed that the Negro will alxmnj, admit his inferiority though 
he inav for a time accept the assumption on the part ot his 
brother knights? This thing, like everything else in connec- 
ticmwith the negro, must be looked at in the light of reason, 
and observation. What is the teaching of the past, and of our 
daily observation outside of this order? Is it necessary to 
frame here an answer to this question ? Is it not answered in 
the consciousness of every man who knows anything about the 
nparo'' And as we have said elsewhere, why persist in ascrib- 
ing to"the Negro anvthing less than the human nature in him 
Zlmmh^ And this demand of his nature breaks over and 
da hes to pieces every artificial barrier that may be set up. 
It i- as uncontrollable as the waves of the ocean when the tern- 



THE NEGRO. 97 

pest sets them in motion. And are we to suppose that no wind 
of passion or prejudice, or ambition, is to blow upon this human 
nature of the Negro ? 

Again, this order is unintentionalhj taking a step in tlie di- 
rection of social equality. This is not its motive, and outsiders 
would have no right to so charge it. Kut outsiders are free to 
judge and pronounce upon its effects, because the effect concerns 
outsiders as much as it does those inside the order. It is not in 
human nature for brethren governed by the same rules and re- 
sponsible for the conduct of each other in their brotherhood 
relations, and mingling in the same society upon terms of })er- 
fect eqiuility, to keep up the distinctions whicli our settled pol- 
icy of social inequality demands. The writer would be plain, 
and he must be fearless on this as on every branch of this negro 
question ; otherwise he is unfit to discuss it. Secret society re- 
lations and contact are different things from ordinary business 
relations and contact. From the one the world is shut out; 
while the other is open to the world. In the one, rules govern 
which the world knows nothing about : in the other, there are 
no rules. Apprehension and suspicion, if not hostility, will be 
aroused towards these mixed secret societies, harmless as their 
purposes may be. 

Since the foregoing was written, a public meeting in the 
sugar country of Louisiana where riots and strikes managed by 
Knights of Labor have prevailed, has felt constrained to pass 
the following resolutions: 

Resolved, That we hereby pledge ourselves, one and all, 
to meet this trouble as good men and law-abiding citizens, and 
to that end we hereby tender ourselves to the sherift and other 
constituted authorities to obey any and all calls upon us to assist 
in carrying out the law, and that our names be at once fur- 
nished to the sheriff that he may call upon us in the event of ne- 
cessity for our services. 

Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that an 
emergency has arisen which requires that the governor be 
called upon to furnish militia to aid in enforcing the law, and to 
prevent bloodshed and violence, and that the sheriff of the par- 
ish be requested to call upon the governor for the aid of some 
recognized military organization." 

Further from the front : 

New Orle.\ns, Nov. 2. — A dispatch to a merchant here 
from Lacasagne, Tigerville, says: ''The strikers shot four of my 
laborers this morning, from an ambush. I have telegraplied to 
the governor for troops. Please see that they get off at once." 

Before this affair ended, a number of Negroes were killed, 
and we may conclude that much ill-blood remains, which may 
at any time in the future be kindled into further strife. .A.nd 
then, look at the cost in money as well as bkH)d, of all such riots. 



98 THE NEGRO. 

Since the foregoing paragraph was written, the following 
further news from the " front" has been received : 

"Thibodoux, Nov. 23. — Our labor trouble had about ceased 
when, on Tuesday afternoon, the people of , this town were reli- 
ably informed that an attack would be made upon the town 
during the night. To prevent any trouble a strong guard of 
deputy sheriffs were picketed at all approaches. At 7 a. m. two 
of the guards, John J. Gorman and Henry Molaison, two of the 
most respectable and esteemed young men of our town, were 
shot from ambush and seriously wounded. Two of their friends 
rushed to their assistance, and while they were attempting to 
relieve their wounded comrades they were again tired upon 
from ambush. Luckily they were not injured. 

"A fearful state of excitement arose and the armed guards 
of the town rushed to the scene of action. They were again 
fired upon from ambush, andthen returned the fire by a general 
fusilade, which was kept up until the rioters were dispersed. 
Some six rioters are known to have been killed and as many 
wounded. None of the guards of the town were injured except 
those above mentioned. Our people are determined to preserve 
the peace and all good citizens are in perfect accord. The above 
facts are gained from reliable sources. 

Clay Knobloch, Lieutenant-Governor. 

Taylor Beattie, Judge. 

T. TiiiBODOUX, Sheriff". 

I. D. Moore, Mayor. 

"Baton Rouge, Nov. 23. — Three young men, Alex, Jones 
and Willie and Joshua Lewis arrived here this morning from 
Bayou Black where they had been at work on Mr. Chiffer's 
place. They say they left there because the negro strikers 
were waylaying and shooting at them at every oprortunity 
and they would rather return to their homes in East Feliciana 
than risk being shot by the negroes." 

Deplorable as it is. and decried as it may be by the Negro 
and his more sanguine friends, it is nevertheless true that he 
is yet too low in the scale of intelligence and morals for these 
subtler and nicer adjustments of human relations. These are 
the product of our most advanced civilization and ideas — 
points reached by the best people of the world under the best 
advantages. The Negro may be formally introduced into such 
associations and be made acquainted with the routine of their 
work, but their higher significance, their philoso})hy, their re- 
lation to society and the State, he cannot comprehend. At 
most he can only realize that he is 'dforc^. in them, blind though 
it be and liable to misdirection and evil use by designing and 
unscru])ulous leaders. 

The fact that there are a few bright minded and exception- 
ally good colored people capable of understanding and using 
these societies aright, amounts to nothing when we are consid- 



THE NEGRO. 90 

ering the whole race, and we are no more warranted in making 
these exceptions the rule of our judgment of the capahilities 
and worth of the race than we are in making an exceptionally 
good and bright school boy the rule of our judgment of his fel- 
lows. He stands for himself and perhaps good home inlluences, 
but not for his fellows. He may give us h(jpe of the rest but he 
can give us no assurance of them. They may as a rule be ex- 
tremel}' dull and vicious. 

One of the demands the Negro will make at the first auspi- 
cious period, is, that there shall be no distinction made in our 
prison and other records as to color, that he shall be known 
only as a man, on the plea that the distinction as at present 
made is invidious and contrary to the spirit of the loth Amend- 
ment; that it makes a distinction noichere lecognized in Federal 
or State Constitutions. This is cropping out in the suitpression 
ofthe designation intheirown newspapers and their reluctance 
to making it or seeing it made in their announcements in other 
papers. In this matter they are opposed to the color line being 
drawn. 

The white families of the South are almost wholly depen- 
dent upon the colored people for domestic servants. Before the 
war, in slavery times, strong attachments, as a rule, existed be- 
tween household servants and the white families, especially 
among the children. With the exception of a few isolated 
cases in which old servants have clung to the families this is 
all broken up. There are no attachments being formed now. 
The servants about the towns, live off the lots of those who em- 
ploy them, in fact generally refuse to live on them, because, 
doubtless, though not avowed, to so live would look too much 
like slavery. They must make a s/ioio of their freedom. 

A state of society in which there is no attachment between 
families and their domesiics is not promising of peace and hap- 
niness between the classes that hold this relation to each other. 
There is a growing estrangement instead of attachment, and 
where there is no attachment or special interest felt, a hostile 
attitude is easily assumed; there is but a single step to it. So 
anomalous a sta'^te of society is not to be contemplated without 
apprehension. Mutual distrust is well nigh universal. 

Negroes and whites are crowding into our towns and cities 
all over the land and the very fact of separate schools and 
churches and of separate settlements generally, so necessary to 
peace between the races, fosters the ideaand feelingof ho^^tility. 
Every such community has its class of vicious whites and 
blacks ever ready to foment trouble with eat;h other, and 
often doing each other injustice. So far as real friendship and 
affection between the two races is concerned it existed to a far 
greater extent in slavery days than it has in the days of free- 
dom, and that not because of hostility to the fact of the Negro's 

L.«.>fC. • . 



100 THE NEGRO. 

freedom but because the races are by the freedom of the Negro 
put farther asunder. 

Then look at the fact that in our public schools in the 
cities, it is so arranged, in order to the prevention of hostile col- 
lisions and of trouble on the streets, that the white and black 
schools shall be dismissed at different hours. And who doesn't 
know of wrongs and injustice, of insults and impudence of a 
most provoking character, on the streets, in passing, between 
adults of the two races? and not always perpetrated alone by 
one side, either. How undesirable is such a social status! 
Who wants to be eternally on the lookout for such things? And 
it will last as long as the races are together under recognized, 
persisted in and proclaimed social distinction, with a tendency 
to grow more serious as the black race grows more elevated. 

To illustrate (taken from one of our local papers published 
since the foregoing was written) : 

"assaulted by negroes." 

"Time and time again complaint has been made of large 
school cliildren who attend the colored schools attacking small 
white children on their way home from school, and threats have 
been made of taking decisive steps to stop it, but nothing has 
been done. Yesterday evening, while three young girls were 
returning home from the Sisters of Mercy's school they were at- 
tacked by four colored girls at the corner of Cherry and (^lay 
streets, knocked oft the sidewalk and otherwise very badly 
treated, and without any apparent cause other than pure, una- 
dulterated cussedness. Two young white men, who were near 
by, took a hand in the fray, when three negro men, who could 
physically overpower the boys, forced them to stop their inter- 
ference, and encouraged the Negro children in tlieir deviltry." 

We might go on and add to this score of sources for friction 
on the Negro side, but we must reserve some space for the other, 
the White side. What have we here? Well, first, no social 
equality at our homes, or in public places where ivhites choose 
to forbid it. Not an agreement between the parties, but a choice 
by one side. 

Secondly, the supremacy of the white race in our State or 
local affairs, at all hazards. In these two things we have the 
chief array of sources for trout)le on the other side in a nut- 
shell. Put the two sides together and we will get the fire ; we 
have the smoke now. Who can look upon the picture — at the 
existing facts, and the facts which the future will give us. and 
say there is not in store for us another "irrepressible conllict," 
about, and the next- time with the Negro ; unless somebody can 
catch the soul of John Brown, and stop its '■ marchin' on." 
The writer is trying to do it, and to tiiat end is seeking touncov- 
er everything (would hide nothing) for it is only as tiie naked 
truth is told that we can see the situation in all its ugly fea- 



^1 



THE NEGRO, 101 

tures, and be moved to take steps in avoidanceof the inevitable 
issue, if the situation remain unclian^ed. 

The loth amendment to the Constitution never will be re- 
pealed. Justice to the podry of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence requires that it shall stand. And that being so, what is 
the next best thing to do? We are shut up to one of two reme- 
dies, if we would avoid the consequences depicted and predicted. 
The one, social equality and amalgamation; the other 

SEPARATION OF THE RACES. 

The first remedy is not to be thought of or mentioned, except 
b}' way of contrast, and as a thing desired by some, if not all of 
the colored people. It is proposed to consider the second and 
only feasible remedy chielly from the standpoint of the good of 
the Negro. 

First let it be stated broadly, as an undeniable, an admitted 
trutli, that the Negro in his free and untrammelled condition 
and self-dependence, under the law, is brought into coinpetion 
with the most perfect race of people existing on the globe; a race 
made up of the best elements of all European nationalities, 
while he himself belongs, admittedly to the most iniperfect and 
inferior of all the races. A simple glance at this undeniable 
proposition will show the negro the great disadvantage under 
which he begins the race of life, for he is, as an independent 
factor, just beginning it. He may learn from, but he cannot 
compete with, the white man of this country. 

In the competitions of life, amongst peoples, as between in- 
dividuals, the principle of " no quarter," softened by such 
amenities only as are needed to facilitate intercourse, lies at the 
bottom and is'the governing principle. As the lines of compe- 
tion begin to converge upon and press around the Negro, he will 
lose his quality of "pet," of "ward of the Nation," and the 
Northern white man will be as ready to cut his throat (meta- 
phorically) as his bloodiest minded white competitors in the 
South. 

We have seen in the foregoing pages how small is the 
]irobability of peace beingmaintained between the races, in the 
South; how the complications of the situation and the causes 
of irritation must of necessity grow day by day. And when 
the culminating point of a war of races is reached, -what will 
the harvest be" to the Negro in a c<mHict. such as it will he? 
It is idle for him to flatter himself with the idea that the general 
(Jovernment or the people of the North would be on his side. 
The most he could hope for would he a divided North, and divi- 
sion would ])aralvze any sympathy found for him there. 
r>ut is it at all likely that any portion of the North 
would take up arms against their own race for his defense? 
How would such a proposition be received by the Northern 
Union soldiers (should the conilict occur in their day) with 



102 THE NEGRO. 

their known respect for the Southern soldier? — and love of the 
rebel flag ! 

Industrially and economically the Negro is a signal failure, 
or he is greatly slandered. Out of the mouths of many credible 
witnesses who have the opportunity to know and who 
do know the tacts of the case, this assertion can be verified. Be- 
sides, his condition clearly establishes the statement. Poverty 
and helplessness is the rule with him, the exception to the rule 
being but a small percentage of the whole. And he is in this 
condition not from want of remunerating emplo3arient 
or from want of fair chances when laboring on his 
own account. And he is helped by a very small necessary ex- 
pense account. He has no style to keep up. His society and 
public duties are no tax upon his time and purse. In fact, there 
is no laboring class in any country whose opportunities to lay 
up money are better. And yet, see his condition in the vast 
majority of cases ! 

What is he to the State, when you have taken out his cost 
to it in his education, in the punishing of him for his crimes 
and in the willful or ignorant damage he does to property? 
Does he pay ? is a question that may be asked with anxiety. 
Some persons with good opportunities to know, affirm that on 
an average he does not work more than one-third of his time. 
Can a State prosper with such labor? And how long will such 
laborers be tolerated ? Not a day longer than their places can be 
filled by a better class. The wants of the world and the narrow 
profits of competition demand that this magnificent Southern 
country with its unrivalled soil and climate should be filled up 
with a population that obeys the laws of progress and economic 
activities. 

The county of Washington, in Mississippi, the largest 
cotton-growing county in the State before the war, and perhaps 
the largest now, furnishes a good illustration of what is charged 
in the foregoing observations on the present inferior character 
of Negro labor. For instance, in 1860 the Negro population of 
the county was 14,467, with the yield ot cotton at about lUO 000 
bales (the writer cannot get at the exact number of bales, but 
it is said to have been over the figure named, for several years) 
while in 1880, with a Negro population of 21,861, the cotton 
production was 54,873; an increase in population of fifty percent., 
and a lessened production of near one hundred per cent.; and [this, 
too, without a diversion of labor to any other pursuit, and loith 
greatly improved agricultural implements. The Alabama 
girl was right — everything was better — " before the war.'" 

This is the difference between keeping step to the music of 
the overseer's horn and the music of the Union aud freedom ! 
But human natui'e cries out, " yes, it may be so, but if we are 
starving, we are starving and dying/ree.^" 

If an account current could be kept with the Negro in the 



\n 



THE NEGRO. W. 

South, it would probably make such revelations as to satisfy the 
States and the property owners in them, that business with him 
had better be wound up. It is certainly a wonderful country 
that can stand such a labor system and not go to the doijs. 
The Lord is merciful to the negro, with his haljits, in putting 
him in such a country. " The Lord takes care of fools, children 
the United States" — and the negro .' must be added. 

It may be allirmed ))()sitively that the South is not prosper- 
ing in her agricultural interests, or through lier agricultural la- 
bor, and on these she relies for a support. Whatever show of 
prosperity there is, is local, not general ; and this has come in 
far the greater part from investment of foreign capital, and not 
from her own earnings, from a surplus above the cost of produc- 
tion ; and this unprosperous condition will continue just as 
long as her lands are worked by laborers capable of making six 
bales of cotton to the hand per year, but who are really making 
but two. 

This low average of work as a rule, runs through all the 
grades of service and labor with them. Working by system 
and up to time is something that they resent, as being a relic of 
slavery, and as house servants they obey orders reluctantly and 
with a resentful air as being inconsistent with their freedom 
and independence of action, although their pecuniary condition 
is such as to compel them to service. To be thorough in any 
pursuit is apparently a thought that never enters their minds. 
But then, under a recollection of the circumstances of their sit- 
uation, their ignorance, and often, the vicious instruction they 
receive, is anything more or better to be expected of them? 

\\"hy is it that in vast reaches of the South, land is so ])ro- 
ductive that it rents from two to ten dollars per acre, according 
to locality and richness, and yet cannot be sold, in quantity, of- 
ten, for as much as a year's rental ? There are specially favored 
localities where there is some demand for land — where there is 
wliat might be called a marketable value; but even there the 
salable value bears no right proportion to the rental value. 
l)Ut in many sections having good transportation facilities, 
there is absolutely no demand for it and it therefore has ?io mar- 
ket value. This is a state of things ;>«at^iar to what we call the 
South. It exists in no other portion of our widely-extended 
country. 

There must be a reason for this. It is found in 
the presence of the Negro. Who wants to buy land 
and settle down in a country filled with a free people with whom 
there can be no social intercourse? To have a healthy and 
steady demand for land we must have emigration, settlers, not 
syndicates domiciled elsewhere, and holding large tracts of 
land which they never personally occujiy and never buy except 
at a sacrifice. We want a steady stream of actual settlers to 
give life to the country and value to the lands. And who can 



104 THE NEGRO. 

believe that this country with its fertile soil and mild climate 
would not fill up with amazing rapidity with just the people 
we want to make it prosperous, if they could come here prom- 
ising themselves the same surroundings they find in the less 
desirable (for climate and variety of productions) West. The 
free Negro is a curse to any country in which he is not the 
equal in all respects of every other man in it, and that he can be 
in no other country than one of his own. And the white man 
will be a curse to the free Negro as long as they dwell together 
permanently in large numbers. 

A country without a thrifty, lespectable and contented 
rural population never will amount to anything; 

" Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade, 
A breath can make them and a breath has made ; 
But a bold Yeomanry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 

We know that the tendency of our country people is to the 
towns and cities. Southern country life at present, everybody 
knows is unattractive and undesirable. It is endured by many 
from necessity who heartily despise it. There is no need to 
state the reasons ; everybody knows them, and tl^iey will con- 
tinue to exist and to operate detrimentally so long as the pres- 
ent state of things exists. 

The writer is seeking to demonstrate the necessity for this 
thing (the separation of the races) rather than to indicate tbe 
exact mode of its accomplishment. If the necessity really ex- 
ists; if the happiness and progress and right development of 
the two races is bound up in it, then our government in pur- 
suing its prime object — to-wit : guaranteeing to its subjects 
the unalienable rights to " life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness;" "to form a more perfect Union, establish justice and 
secure domestic tranquility " — must devise the necessary means 
for the attainment of the end oi separation. 

Such a change as that indicated would involve expense, 
require time and work inconvenience, in an adjustment to its 
requirements; but the good ends to be subserved, it is urged, 
are worth the j)atient endurance of all these. In a work which 
is intended more to arouse thought, reflection and suggestion 
in others, than to indicate methods of accomplishment in what 
it proposes, discursiveness must be expected. The field of 
observation surveyed has been extended with a view to touch- 
ing as many minds as possible, and as this has been the main 
object of the writer, the reader is cautioned not to look for that 
perfect agreement of each part with every other part that marks 
an infallible utterance. All human composition must partake, 
more or less, of liuman frailty. 

No, this is to be a white man's country, as against the red 
man, the yellow man, and the black man. The fairer portions 
of these United States will be his for a possession forever, and tie 



THE NEGRO. lOr, 

will push out any other race that may impede his progress, or 
be ill his way. These Southern States are destined to become 
a great hive of varied industries. In climate, and soil, and 
variet}' of productions, they are the most favored portion of the 
United States. They can sustain a larger population to the 
square mile than any other portion of the country, and will 
eventually be tilled up with the best people the country aObrds. 

"The treasures of that pleasant land — 
The fruitful resrions in the same which stand, 
Tiie goodly rivers, and brave niountini; hills, 
Sweet tempera t(.> airs, oh every side thai (ills 
The downy plains with such a fragrant smell 
As winged Fame into our ears doth tell — 
The spicy trees, and brave delightful flowers, 
The dainty walks, and gilt, aspiring towers. 
And all things else that men could well desire, 
Or discontent of nature may require. " * 

* The Garden of Eden as described in the " Glasse of Tynie, " by Thomas 
Peyton. This quaint poem ajipeared nearly half a centur}' earlier than y'<//vi(/i.sf 
Lost and it is intrinsically probable that It would have fallen under the eye of 
Milton ; in any ca.se there are striking points of resemblance between the two 
poems. 

Some portions of this fair land should be reserved to the 
descendants of those who made the country, who, amid perils 
and hardships innumerable, subdued it to civilization and built 
up a governmental structure which has excited the admiration 
of the world. And it is not immodest in them, under the cir- 
cumstances, to ask for the he^t portion of it. 

In this Southland of our common country Infidelity has no 
tap-root ; the nomenclature of her politics, religion and litera- 
ture, is without the terminal imx; she has ever studied and 
taught the Science of Government in Church and Statt; upon 
conservative lines ; and everything points to her as the field 
where the solid square of our Christian and Rejjublican civiliza- 
tion is to form against the cohorts of infidelity, agrarian- 
ism, and socialism, and where no enemy with treachery in liis 
heart, will lurk within the lines. Dr. McCilinn, in the North 
American Review, says : 

'■ The fact is, as has been stated by Professor lioyesen, in 
recent magazine article urging restriction of immigration as 
a means of preserving our nationality and institutions, that so 
great is now the spirit of foreign nationality among foreign 
born citizens that many among them make no concealment of 
their sense of superiority and of their contempt of Americans 
and American manners and traditions. " 

The descendants of the Puritans (whose tread in the march 
of civilization has shaken the earth) of the British Cavaliers; 
of the French Huguenots, of the Scotcli and tin; Scotch-Irish, 
will be the possessors in perpetuity of all this fair Southland ; 
and here they will rear the grandest civilization the world has 
ever known because they are the grandest people in the world. 



a 



106 THE NEGRO. 

They will shape the destinies of this continent through their 
intellectual force and impress their civilization, whatever may 
be itsform, upon the remotest parts of the continent. The New 
England mind, under the dominating influence of the Puritan 
element, is essentially and potently aggressive and its fecundity 
of ideas is wonderful. No sooner is birth given to one idea than 
another is formed. There i- no match for this New England 
Puritan mind except the Southern mind, formed of an equally 
rich but far more varied material. The latter is a composite of 
Puritan, Cavalier, Huguenot, Scoth and Scotch-Irish. Though 
not so persistent and aggressive as the New England mind, it 
is more practical and conservative, with the governing faculty 
more highly developed. 

If the happinessand welfareof the white and black races can 
be secured onlj' by separation, what is to become of the Negro? 
where is he to go ? Give him a country all to himself, and buy 
it if we have not one suited to him now (we have virtually done 
as much for foreigners with less reason for it) and spend, if 
necessary, the last surplus dollar in the treasury for the pur- 
pose ; and let him there work out his destiny " with none to 
molest or make him afraid, " where his progress, if he has pro- 
gressive qualities, will be unimpeded by hostile or adverse in- 
fluences and surroundings ; not to be a castaway, but under the 
protection of the government, with representation in Congress. 
And were he to himself every white man in the country should 
be his friend, and by none would his interests be more jealously 
guarded and his welfare more earnestly sought, than by the 
white people of these Southern States. 

The acquisition of Cuba and Central America by purchase 
was a prominent political measure of Mr. Buchanan's adminis- 
tration, looking to, without making the avowal, of an extension 
of slave area, and a bill was before the Senate in 185U appropri- 
ating thirty million dollars to the purchase of Cuba; Senator 
Douglass, of Illinois, going so far, in a speech in New Orleans 
in December, 1858, which the writer heard, as to say we would 
be compelled to t(ike them some day. If desirable then for the 
extension of slave area, would it not be more desirable now for 
the extension of free area, and as a ])ermanent and suitable 
home for the colored race? President Polk proposed, during 
his administration through our minister at Madi'id, to purchase 
C!uba of Spain, taking the responsibility without action on the 
part of (Congress. Thus we see that one Northern President 
and a Northern candidate for the Presidency favored the pur- 
chase, virtually for the extension of slaver3\ Can we not get 
another Northern President to favor it for the extension of 
freedom ? 

Let the money which is proposed to be spent under the* 
Ulair Educational bill, a measure deemed by some to be of doubt- 
ful constitutionality, and as having obnoxious features at its 



I 



THE NEGRO. I(i7 

best, be spent for this purpose instead. Give the Negroa coun- 
try which he can call hisown, a permanent home for himself and 
his descendants — somethino; to be governed b\' himself, fsome- 
thing to live foi' and to tight and die for, if need he, and you 
may make a patriot of him, and he will have a fair opportunity 
to develop his highest capacities. Situated as he is now he 
can have the opportunity never. It the Negro has been wronged 
this is the feasible way to right the wrong, and wronged or not, 
it would give us peace with him, and what is more important, 
peace between the North and South, which we will have never 
so long as the Negro's vote shall be cast freely or be controlled for 
the supposed benefit of either section. Neither section will ever 
be satisfied to see theother section's measures carried by his vote. 
And all the patriotic speeches in the world cannot wipe out the 
living, glaring fact that thei'e is a North and South ; a fact made 
all the more palpable by the presence of the Negro in the South. 

The Blair bill may give the Negro an education but it does 
not give him a country, and that is his greatest want. 

Unless the Negro is but a parasitic pauper of civilizatioti, 
incapable of independent existence in that relation, just as the 
parasite of the vegetable kingdom, " the pau})er of nature," is 
in its relations, then the best thing to do for him is to remove 
all props and supports and let him stand alone. 

Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, in an address to the 
Negroes at the New Orleans Industrial Exposition (published 
since this work was begun) said amongst other things, to 
the Negroes : 

" If you are to be a historic people, you must make your- 
selves worthy of a history, for it is a law of nature in all her 
departments that everything must grow from its own roots 
There are parasitic plants that climb about the trees upon which 
they live, and that sometimes even •(>ut forth little Mowers of 
their own, but they have no root of their own. and theiefore no 
strength and no glory. It is an ordinance of Ilim who has 
made nature and man, and it is as true of races as of jjlants, 
that everything must grow from its own root. " 

If the root of the matter be in him it will develop itself; if 
it be not in him his unfitness for his present political relatione 
will be clearly seen. Give him a clear field with no one to in- 
terfere, our government seeing only that other hands are '"kept 
off," and then let him work out his own political salvation and 
civilization. If he be not color-blind to civilization, in our 
light he will see light. The benefit of our <'xatn|)le, when his 
home is provided for him, is all the aid we should give him, he- 
cause it is all that will be for his good. 

The white people owe the Negro no grudge, perplexed and 
annoyed as they have been by the mistakes (in his hehalf) of 
the government, which is greatly more at fault than the Negro. 
The Southern white people would be rejoiced at his deliverance 



108 THE NEGRO. 

from every embarrassment, and at his having the best possible 
chance for a prosperous and honorable career. He has not got 
it now, and never will have it while the two races are together. 
But the white people of the South owe something to themselves 
as well as to the Negro. They a)e fixed in their determination 
to preserve their supremacy he the cost lohat it may to the Negro or 
themselves. They know from sad experience that their only hope of 
happiness for themselves and their posterity depends upon this 
determination and they will unalterably persue it. 

This is strong language, but it is the truth and it is best 
for all parties that the truth should be spoken. How can the 
Negro or anybody else expect the Southern white people with 
their proud historic record, to yield their political fortunes and 
their domestic peace to the keeping of an inferior race? a race 
but yesterday their slaves, and but the day before savages in a 
land that has never struck a note ujion the keyboard of civili- 
zation ! 

In a speech made at Monroe, La., Oct. loth, 18S7, (since the 
above was written), U. S. Senator Eustis indulged in the fol- 
lowing language, which is but a voicing of the universal sen- 
timent of the white people of the South : 

" Two distinct races, almost equally divided in numbers, co- 
inhabit the same territory and live under the same government 
and under the same institutions. It is not ihe fault of the 
white man — it is not the fault of the colored man- — that race an- 
tagonism exists ; it is sentiment, an instinct, a passion beyond 
the control of either. Therefore as much as it may be re- 
gretted, yet owing to causes inherent in human nature itsslf, 
at any moment, and under provocations now unforeseen a spark 
may produce a conflagration in our midst. The dream of the 
Yankee crank is that this question can be solved by miscegena- 
tion ; but my judgment is, that deplore it as you may, the inex- 
orable logic forced upon us by the unchangeable and eternal 
laws of human nature itself is that we have to determine 
whether the negro shall rule and govern the white man, or 
whether the white man shall govern and rule the Negro. That is 
the question which we have to determine by our elections, and 
on that issue I need not tell you that every interest, ev- 
ery instinct of pride, every impulse of manhood, every el- 
ement of Caucasian civilization, every personal right, every 
guarantee which upholds society, every function and every 
princi])le of representative government is directly at stake. It 
is far beyond and above the personal amhition of any individ- 
ual, however illustrious or distinguished he may be as a citizen 
of Louisiana,." 

Gov. McEnery, on the same occasion, said as much; and 
the same is asserted in a late address by the Democratic execu- 
tive committee of Warren county. Miss. 

The people of this country in this generation, with its in- 



THE NEGRO. 100 

creased light and great resources, have it in their power to set- 
tle this negro question, for all time to come, leaving nothing 
to be done or undone about it, by future generations. Tlie ques- 
tion has vexed the country long enough. The children shoukl 
be as wise as their fathers, who but followed the leadings of 
Providence ; dealing with the que.^tion in the respect in wliicli 
it was presented in their day. The hand on the dial of the 
clock of Providence has moved forward, and jioints to a change 
of aspect, calling for new measures on the part of the people. 
Will they obey the call ? And when shall these things be? 
A great author has said "the horologe of Time does not peal 
out the passage from one era to another." 

The war settled the question of the right of secession as ef- 
fectually as if its denial had been plainly written in the Con- 
stitution. It never will be revived. It was a Gordian knot, 
but the sword cut it, and ended the controversy. There will be 
no further searching for its hidden ends or attempts to unrav- 
el its intricate folds. If we could get the Negro out of the "wood- 
pile," there wouldn't a wave of trouble roll across our })eaceful 
breasts ! We can pleasantly disagree about any other question 
likely to arise, and we of the South would as naturally divide 
on all questions of Federal policy as they of the North. We can 
give a fraternal hug over the tariff '• for revenue only," or with 
"incidental protection." We can together kill Indians, suj)- 
press the Mormons, and whip the Canadians away from our fish- 
ing grounds ! The hatchet would be buried, handle and all, and 
the ugly word "chasm " would be forever blotted from our po- 
litical vocabular}'! 

Let the General Government do justice to the Southern 
white people, and to the Negro whom it has led in devious 
ways, by opening up a plan for the separation of the races, 
thereby*^ promoting the happiness of both, and the more firmly 
attaching both to her fortunes, thereby atoning for the pas- 
sage of ths loth Amendment to the Constitution— thk ghkat- 

EST CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION OF THE NINETEENTH ( ENTIKV. 

If this problem of the Negro is one of the perils of the 
country, is it wise in us to leave it as a legacy to our children — 
to leave its solution to them ? Will not every year added to its 
asre but increase its complications? It is environed now with 
diiliculties and embarassments, which are well-nigh aj. pall- 
ing. What will it be fifty years hence with a negro population 
of twentv-five millions?' Like the question of the right of se- 
cession left us by the Fathers of the Constitution, will anything 
but the sword tlien settle it ? A single line— one way or the 
other— added to that Immortal Instrument which the Fathers 
gave to the world, might have saved hundreds of thousands of 
lives and billions of treasure. 

Any citizen of this country who charges himself with con- 
cern for" his posterity, whose m'ind is ever solemnized by that 



110 THE NEGRO. 

greatest thought which filled Mr. Webster's mind — his respon- 
sibility to God — may well tremble when he stands face to face 
with this great and perplexing question. We are wont to throw 
it off with tlippant utterance and unseemly jest; but to the 
thoughtful mind it must come back, ever and anon, like the 
bird of evil omen, which sat upon "the bust of Pallas" in the 
poet's study. 

]]esides the better acquaintance of the present gen- 
ation with the subject, it is probable that they are most likely 
to be guided by a sound judgment and virtuous consideration 
than future generations, if the demoralization growing out of 
Negro suffrage and other existing causes is to continue and 
increase with time — as is altogether probable. 

It cannot be denied that our present attitude on this Negro 
question is wholly illogical and inconsistent with our theory of 
government. A\'hat is the teaching of a comparison of univer- 
sal public opinion amongst the whites of the South and the law 
as it stands ? Yea more; what is the teaching of the appeal in 
the New York Freeman of a late date, edited by a Negro, to the 
race to organize " upon the general basis of belief in a move- 
ment to secure our rights?" Not at the South alone, but "to se- 
cure some of the civil rights ivhich are denied us in the Norths 
What does all of this teach, we say ? Plainly enough, that there 
is a deep-seated hostility to the /e^/a/ relations existing between 
the races. Where will you find another race or class in our 
country organizing to secure the civil rights denied them ? 
We find organizations to secure reforms in the laws, but none 
other than this Negro movement to secure " civil rights" under 
existing laws. 

People are slow to ^peak out on this question, but they 
are continually acting out. They shun a discussion of the 
question, and hide their real sentiments. In their hearts they 
despise the law that unites the races, audit is a dead letter; in 
their hearts they are breaking it dail3^ whether they do it out- 
wardly or not. The writer feels the embarassments of the ques- 
tion. He knows that he is not uncharitable in his feelings, 
and yat he knows he must seem so to the Negro. ^luch that he 
has said has been painful to him, and not alone about the Ne- 
gro, but it has come in the course of the discussion of a ques- 
tion which has reached its climax, and where tenderness as a 
governing principle would be treason to the truth, and would 
defeat the good he is seeking to accomplish, perhaps vainly, 
but none the less surely and honestl}'. 

We aae virtually maintaining two civilizations under one 
government, or periiaps it would be more accurate to say, we 
are maintaining a whole civilization for one race, and a half- 
civilization for another, under the same code of laws. A jar- 
ring of the wheels of government necessarily follows, and must 
end in ungearing the machine. The adjustment of our complex 



THE NEGRO. 1 1 1 

machinery is too fine and mathematical to admit of such eccen- 
tricities. 

No, we cannot successfully govern these two races toydher ; 
it may be done separately, just as England is governing herself 
and her separated inferior race in India. The only logical, 
practical and safe relation for two races so widely separated in 
all respects as our two races, and yet divellhuf together, is the rela- 
tion that existed before the war, guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion of the Tnited States, (wliich <.'uaraiitee Mr. Lincoln was 
willing to make 'irrevocable^), and while the writer would not re- 
store that relation, if he had it in his power, for all the world„yet 
he has no ai)ology or qualitication to make fur hi.s opinion. He 
holds that he is borne out in it by the history of the Negro race 
since their freedom was obtained, and by the evil ellects to the 
whole country growing out of the changed relation. 

Accepting the situation and being satisfied with it are two 
distinct things, and thisdisti)iction must be constantly kept be- 
fore the eye bj' every mind that would be independent and 
self-acting. It is a fundamental })rineiple in free thought and 
free institutions. I\:eei)ingup thisdistinction leaves us free to 
amend while we are obeying. There is no divine and imperious 
sanction in the public conscience of a free thinking people for 
wrong. Though they may never right the wrong, they will 
steadily continue to regard it as an unclean thing. The mind 
must be held above the debasement of wrong though the body 
submit to it. 

The people of the South honestly accepted the situation at 
the close of the war. They had been defeated as fairly as the 
losing side is generally — with due allowance for the maxim 
that everything is fair in war — and without a murmur they 
gave up forever Slavery and the llight of Secession as lawful 
prizes to the victor. No matter that they could not help them- 
selves; there is no right in a generous and honorable con- 
queror to go behind the act of a free and full surrender. To 
the chivalrous conqueror the moving causes are no part of the 
act. To him they are as if they had not been. 

In the course of time, the seceding and con(iU('red States 
— purged of the crime of slavery and the heresy of secession in 
the eyes of the Northern conqueror — got back into the restored 
Union with all their rights and privileges (minus the afore- 
mentioned) restored, just as they were held before the war, and 
now have an equal voice with the other States. They are. in 
honor bound to maintain the two results of the war invicdate. 
They can never hold another slave or e;i?er secede from tiie I'nion. 
These relations of theirs to the Union are unalterabU-. And 
by their complete restoration to the privileges enjoyed before 
secession, their co-States of the non-seceding sections 
are in honor bound to treat thein as equals. And 
this duty on the part of the other States carries with 



112 THE NEGRO. 

it the obligation of a respectful hearing of any 
grievance complained of b}' said restored States, and a 
patient consideration of any question of Federal policy or legis- 
lation which threatens their domestic peace and future welfare. 
All the more are the other States, operating through the general 
agent, the Federal government, bound by these considerations, 
if the questioned or questionable policy be mainly local in its 
application — effecting seriously only the aggrieved States. 

The Northern people must know, as well as they know any- 
thing else, that the old slave States would not present this solid 
front on questions of Federal policy, which may remotely or 
directly touch the negro question, did not a paramount 'necessity 
for it exist. With this negro question put aside they are as 
radically divided on questions of State and Federal policy as 
the North. The plain truth of the matter is, they are afraid to 
divide as things now stand, and the wonder is that the North- 
ern people don't see it — don't recognize the necessity for it, and 
credit them with the good sense that dictates the policy. The 
South feels the hazard of assuming the position, but she also 
feels the greater hazard which lies behind it. 

Are these States which maintain this unwonted but neces- 
sary attitude, of consequence to the Union? Enough is known 
of their commercial, agricultural and mineral value to render 
anything more than a reference to them unnecessary. Are 
they of any value to the Union in point of statesmanship, of poli- 
tical sagacity, of prowess in war? Without boasting, without 
so much as enumerating her unquestionable title to these, she 
simply points in answer to the records of the past. 

These considerations must have influenced the General 
Government in what some are pleased to call the magnanimity 
of her policy toward the South at the close, of the war; for giv- 
ing us the military and the Negro and the carpet-bagger as 
our rulers, instead of "hanging and quartering" us and wholly 
(they did it in part) confiscating our property. It is our Chris- 
tian duty to forget and forgive the past, only insofar, however, 
as remembering it may prevent its recurrence, and it is like- 
wise a duty to "vindicate the truth of history." It is always 
safest to base reasons for things upon grounds that can be es- 
tablished. It is easy enough to prove our worth to the Union, 
but proving the Government's magnanimity rests upon evidence 
that would be ruled out of court as insufficient to establish the 
claim. 

The truth is, no doubt, that the thinking statesmen of the 
North, in receiving the South back into the Union upon these 
apparent favorable terms, were influenced by the consideration 
that the war was fought upon a point about which the country 
was ho7iedly divided, to-wit : the right of secession. It is a bold 
if not a dishonest man, fanjiliar with the arguments, who 
will say they were all on one side; indeed, that the question 



THE NEGRO. 113 

was not involved in the gravest sort of doubt, at least, and with 
the intense hatred of Mr. Davis at the North it is altogether 
probable that he would have been tried for treason if the Su- 
preme Court of the Tnited States could have been trusted to 
sustain the charge, making the "sour apple tree" a fact instead 
of a fancy. Let us be true to history though the heavens fall 
and our claim to "magnanimity" with it. 

Now then, are we that incorrigibly bad people that some 
of our dear brethren at the North call us. Besides our good 
record referred to. and the strong suspicion of our innocence of 
the charge of trea.son, re6e/s though they persist in calling us, 
we be brethren now, of one household, of an undivided and in- 
divisible household, which would laugh to.scorn the very earth- 
quake that should undertake to divide us! 

The Civil Rights bill of Congress passed March 1st, 1875, 
the first section of which reads as follows : 

"That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United 
States, shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the 
accommodations, advantages, facilities and priviliges of inns, 
public conveyances on land or water, theatres, and other places 
of amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations 
established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every 
race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude." 
Was a deliberate and senseless attempt on the part of that body 
to legislate a prejudice of long standing out of existence. The 
word prejudice is used here in its second sense, as defined by 
Webster : "a previous bent or bias of mind for or against any 
person or thing; prepossession." Are our prejudices as defined 
here to be set at naught, ruthlessly assailed by those who legis- 
late for us, at their pleasure, and regardless of consequences? 
There never did a prejudice exist in any mind without occasion 
of some kind for it, and the prejudices of a whole peoi)le are 
often as sacred to them as their persons or property, and they 
often go as far in defending them. Prejudice as defined above 
is entitled to respect and the wise man and the wise legislator 
always respects it. The wise man reasons against prejudice 
and leaves it to wear out; he does not attempt to tear it out by 
legislationor otherwise, because the attempt w^ould be wholly 
futile; and whoso bold as to aflirm that tins feeling is only a 
prejudice, even in the largest sense of the word? What if it be 
an instinct implanted m our natures for the specific purpo.se 
of keeping the two races separate, of preserving the order of 
nature as decreed by the Almighty? Instinct preserves this 
order in other branches of the animal kingdom, and why not 
in thi.s— the highest branch of that kingdom? It is no sullicient 
answer to say that if this be a law of nature or an instinct, it 
is frequently violated. With man's large responsibilities there 
is large freedom, and if passion leads him to overstep the 



114 THE NEGRO. 

bounds of instinct — the law written in his heart — that proves 
nothing except his natural depravity. The deed is not sancti- 
fied in the yielding to a depraved appetite, neither is the in- 
stinct disproved. 

Reasons could be given for this prejudice, as it is called, 
against indiscriminate intercourse in all places between the 
two races. They might not be satisfactory to those who have 
had no occasion or oportunity to form oppinions; but what 
business of theirs is it? If they are not interested, not affected 
by the matter one way or the other, why seek to satisfy them? 
The C-ivil Rights bill sets out in its preamble with the following 
grand flourish: 'Whereas it is essential to just government 
we recognize the equality of all men before the law. * >i: * 

* * * and it being the appropriate object of legislation to 
enact great fundamental principles into law, therefore be it 
enacted," tfcc, &c. 

After such a libation to liberty it is a great pity to have 
the United States Court set down on the bill as unconstitutional. 

In a certain sense this legislation was necessary. It was 
necessary for consistency's sake, as was argued by Mr. Justice 
Harlan in his dissenting opinion. A wrong step having been 
taken in conferring full citizeriship upon the negro — investing 
him with the right of suffrage — a further wrong step was neces- 
sary to cause the right conferred to be respected. How was it 
possible for a people who proclaimed the inequality of the 
negro with them from the housetop like Mr. Lincoln — 
who showed it in their every act — to respect the right 
conferred by the amendments to the Constitution? The 
propagandist could meet this stubborness in but one way, and 
that way was to make the rebellious people, by legislation, 
first personally respect the negro as fully as they respected 
anybody else, and then they would respect the high privil- 
ege conferred upon him by the Constitution. It was only an 
attempt on their part to work a miracle ! And should a people 
who had subdued the rebels hesitate about working miracles? 
But they were like the prophets of Baal that contended with 
Elijah; with all of their cutting of themselves with knives they 
couldn't make the fire descend from Heaven; and the Supreme 
court of the United States had to "slay" them! 

They argued about the necessity for this law as they 
argued about giving the ballot to the negro. The ballot was an 
evolution from freedom, and personal regard for the negro was 
an evolution from the ballot. They said the ballot was a 
weapon placed in his hands for his own protection. Of what 
account is a weapon that one doesn't know how to use and with 
which he is as likely to kill himself as anybody else? And why 
thrust me into the society of Kings and Queens who deliberately 
turn their backs upon me, or take out their smelling bottles be- 
fore me ? 



THE NEGRO. 11 



o 



The Personal Libert}- Bills enacted by the Leorislatures of 
Northern States, before the war, and intended to defeat the op- 
eration of the fugitive slave law of Congress, were but tributes to 
an ineradicable prejudice, heightened in their inexcusableness 
and made treasonable and revolutionary by the fact that they 
were a deliberate attempt to nullify a law of Congress founded 
upon a clear provision of the Constitution. So much for North- 
ern respect for its own prejudices. The prejudice of the South 
against the Civil Rights Hill hath this advantage over the North- 
ern prejudice, that it vvas against an unconstitutional, law of Con- 
gress, as was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. 
She was doubly vindicated — in her own eyes and in the eyes of 
the Supreme Court. 

Legislation about anything in advance of public opinion 
is akin to the propagation of religion by the sword. A forced 
growth is nearly always an unhealtliy growth, and sometimes 
it kills. This Civil Rights bill was a political burglary upon 
the Constitution, a political free-lovism, a Rape of the Lock, as 
it were : 

"The lock obtained with guilt and kept with pain." 

This balm of Gilead — the Civil Rights Bill, came with its 
healing in its wings, just at the time when the Negro and the 
carpet-bagger had reached their sublimest heights. It was a 
spur to them, but no less a spur to the enraged whites. It was the 
proverbial "feather." It broke down the Republican party in 
the South, and ever since the decision of the Supreme Court on 
the bill, as a National party, it has been carrying its arm in a 
sling and has had a splinter in its toe. 

The fate of this bill is a monument to the wisdom of the Su- 
preme court and is a living witness to the folly of the Ciovern- 
ment in undertaking to legislate a Nation's prejudices out of ex- 
istence, and H standing commentary upon the unwisdom of the 
government on this Negro question after the }»assageof the 13th 
Amendment to the Constitution ; which amendment was a prop- 
er measure — allowing that theGeneralGovernmenthad any pow- 
er over the question whatever. On this vexed question, we 
should have been content to " make haste slowly." 

COXCLUSIO.X. 

When the Author was nearing the conclusion of his labor.s, 
therefell into his hands a little work bearing the title. "Our 
Country," by Rev. Josiah Strong, D. D., with an introduction by 
Prof. Austin Phelps (both Northern men), in which the work is 
praised without stint. A careful readingof the book has satis- 
fied the writer that it well deserves the large reading it has had 
and every word of praise it has drawn out from I'rof. Phelps 
and others. Indeed, he regards it as perhaps the most valuable 
work on the state of the country, looked at from both a s(^cular 



116 THE NEGRO. 

and a religious standpoint, that has appeared in the last quarter 
of a century. 

When he saw the plan of the work ; that it was concerning 
the " perils " of the country, he felt sure the peril from the 
Negro would have a prominent place and receive a careful no- 
tice. Imagine his surprise when he found the Negro was en- 
tirely ignored — was left undisturbed " in the wood-pile !" The 
lightof the genius of the author is not even thrown for a mo- 
ment upon the wood-pile that we might get a glimpse of the Ne- 
gro — leaving him to shine alone, like the glow-worm, by hisown 
light. There are certain darA; hints .towards the conclusion of 
the work which may be construed into a reference to the Negro ; 
for instance, when he says on page 175 : 

" Whether the feebler and more abject races are going to be 
regenerated and raised up is already very much of a question. 
What if it should be God's will to people the world with better 
and finer material ?" 

And again, on page 177 : 

" Whether the extermination of inferior races, before the ad- 
vancing Anglo-Saxon seems to the reader, sad or otherwise, it cer- 
tainly appears probable." 

It would be no stretch of the imagination to say, that the 
American Negro is plainly visible between these lines. It is a 
delicate way of disposing of him without calling his name. And 
this delicacy is to be commended, since the mode of getting rid of 
him is so summary. The Doctor would not hurt the Negro's feel- 
ings, though he does hint strongly at his extermination ! 

The writer has embellished hisown work with some extracts 
from "Our Country." He regrets that his work is not of sufficient 
merit to justify him in tendering it to Doctor Strong as the ''miss- 
ing link" in the perils of "Our Country." 

We have more than mere surface indications that ere long 
the only friends of the black man will be the Southern white peo- 
ple. In the end they will have more hope of him, and more con- 
fidence in him, and will be more patient with his faults and the 
inconveniences he occasions. They know him and understand 
him better than other people do, and they know better than oth- 
ers how to co?i<ro^ him ; and the sensible Negro knows and will 
admit, that the race (not all individuals of it) are as much in 
need of control, direction and restraint as so many children 
would be. That is a fact patent to every eye that can see, to ev- 
ery mindopen to the light of truth. 

And it is safe to say that the Southern white man is the only 
man who has the political sagacity to wisely })lan for the Ne- 
gro's future. He will be more ready than others to make sacri- 
fices of time and money for him. He has shown this already in 
the sacrifice he has raade,inhis})Overty, for the Negro's education. 
He is trying to give him enough to keep others from cheating 
him, and that is about all he needs ?io«'. He needs a country, a 



THE NEGRO, 117 

home^ and property far more than he needs the higher educ-ition 

istpr PI "''' ?""r ' ^''' ^^'thern-raised and eclucatl col r -d Vun' 
ister Plenipotentiary, ("onsul-(;eneral .„• whatever l.eivu!; 

mg moulty well developed, (.e hive :!^ h', 1 .. ej" , '^l^^ 
days. He would not beable to talk learnedly to thelil eri-tn "l^ 
State dinner-;, but he could teach them ho>v to farm and "ake 
ahvmg while takingcareof the di<rnitv of the tlnife^ «„ 
make himself u.selV,l as well as „rna,nen\a° He w 'id , ^'iT 
come disgusted and write long reports about the si, t 'on ilsof 
his brother in Black. ThecoUe^e-bred 'cultiirerl" v„wi. ^C- 
gro should beheld in reserve for the fat jJui rlu/o^U heT'^pt 
tol and the District of Columbia. P 

Liberia, for her needs in her infantile state, is too far rp 
moved from the centers of civilization, and she is too /^l to 
command the respect of the world. She has the A'eJnm J„ t U 
machinery and equipment of a nation, while she is but an in J 
mficant colony. Her big timber wheels with nothing but fig' 
Hig-poles to haul only serve to excite the ridicule of those who 
behold her, and doubtless the savage tribes under her nom n U 
control regard her as only a black parody upon a white an 
government. • i^ j i • a wuiie man .s 

Her population proper is about the same as the Necrro „o).- 
ulation o ^\ arren county, Miss., and is probably none the m .re 
respectable morally and intellectually. ® 

In 1882 her population was 18,000 and the semi-wild 
tribes withm her territorial limits numbered l,OoO 000 Uu K 

th'%orZ"rnTs4^'"T^f.i.''%^^"^^?' '"^^^^^'' ^-"^"^ 

ine colony in 1822. In 1848. its independence was ac- 
knowledged by Great Britain, and in 1801 bv the TniteTstate. 
I IS probably an abortion as an agent in the civili.at on uui 

hnstianization o Africa. These offices cannot be erforme 
ior her bv the black man. It is the merest vagary of the en n 
siast or dream of the opium eater. Her political^u d leli" u. 
t^fwhU^mair^^ ^^"^ only through the instrumentalily "of 

hnnPl ^^"^"canNegromightbe fit for the office after a A-w 
hundred years of his own self-government, and self-civili/ati n 
that Ls, ityou look atit in the liglit of com non sense and t as 
an enthusiast; and, if the American Negro should in tie course 
of time realize the best hoj.es of his frien.is. Hut o ,mmon 
sense would teach that he must first do this work for i^^^^^^ 
before he can undertake to do it for the millions upon mill , s 
of his mother country; and ^/mUie will nmr have the chance 






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